Eleven Again
by theletterfive
Summary: Draco's life isn't going too well. Living in New York, trying to forget about his past...but then one day, he wakes up in his eleven-year-old body, about to head off to Hogwarts for his very first year. Rated T for alcohol and minor language. Will be eventual Draco/Hermione and other pairings.
1. A Scream Ripped From His Throat

Harry Potter and all its characters and storylines belong to J.K. Rowling.

* * *

 **Chapter One - "A** **Scream Ripped From His Throat."**

"Another one?" asked the bartender in a Southern drawl, eyeing the just-emptied glass set before her. "Honey, you already had - "

Draco Malfoy waved off her concern. "On my tab," he interrupted, concentrating hard on his speech so as not slur his words. She was right of course; he'd had more than enough to drink already. The world had dimmed and blurred and his senses had dulled. He couldn't think very straight and was having some difficulty remembering a few things, but that was the point of getting drunk, wasn't it? He was trying to forget about everything, and alcohol was his solution.

"Alrighty then," the bartender said. She gave him a smile that might've been flirtatious as she poured him another glass. "You wanna kick up de alcohol upuh notch, honey?"

The Malfoy heir frowned at her. "What're you going to add?"

She gave him a wink. "Ne'er you mind, sweetie. It'll taste good, and dat's what mattuhs. Pull upuh stool. I'm dyin' for someone tuh talk tuh fo' uh bit, and you looks to be a smart 'un. You're quite uh handsome 'un too, ain'tcha?"

The bartender was keeping the glass of alcohol, which happened to be the thing Malfoy was interested in right at that moment, just out of his reach.

"Nuh uh," she scolded teasingly. "Lemme finish makin' yuh drink, sweetheart. It'll be even bettuh than what youse had befo'." She grinned widely at him. Draco noticed quite abruptly that she was missing several of her teeth and wondered how on earth he'd missed this detail before.

"I just want the drink," he told her, concentrating once more on his speech.

She ignored him. "I don't know whatchur doin' out at a bar like dis," she was saying, clearly trying to flirt with him again. "And tuh be honest, I'm suhprised nobody's been sayin' much tuh yuh, or buying you drinks or somemat, wid all you good looks."

He brushed off her comment like it was nothing more than irritating fly and wondered, not for the first time, why he kept coming to this bar, when the bartenders kept trying to flirt with him. She was not the first one.

"Say, honey," she said, seeming to realize that she'd lost his attention. "You got some girl friend of yourn?"

Well, that was brutal and straight forward, no suggestive hints at all. Straight out stating what she was clearly interested in.

He didn't need to let her know the truth. It wasn't her business anyway, the fact that he was single, miserable, and swamped in a hopeless state of depression despite the crisp and cool Malfoy demeanor he'd managed to keep with him throughout all his trials and tribulations.

"Yeah, I've got a girlfriend," he lied easily. She was still mixing his drink, and he'd given up the hope of getting it any time soon. Perhaps that was a good thing. Maybe it was just the overly loud music combined with all he'd had to drink, but his head had started to pound obnoxiously.

At these words, the bartender raised her penciled eyebrows. "Really? I ain't seen you with no girl today, hon. Where she at? Where your girlfriend at tonight?"

Draco couldn't suppress a sigh from escaping him. He blamed this show of weakness on the alcohol, but the bartender was triumphant, as if this sigh was all she needed to prove her point.

"You ain't got no girlfriend, do yuh, sugar?" she said. "Well, I ain't one tuh be makin' fun of yuh for dat, 'cause I ain't seein' nobody mahself, but I tell you what." She paused to lean underneath the bar counter and emerged only a few seconds later with a paper umbrella for Draco's drink in her hand. It was pink in color, decorated with white flowers scattered like snow. She plopped it tastefully into the drink she'd been mixing and slid it almost seductively over to Draco, who looked down on it and wondered what the bloody hell she'd done to his alcohol.

"Tell yuh what," she continued, leaning forward as far as the counter would allow. "I ain't seein' nobody, but youse certainly mah type."

Again, she was brutal and straightforward with her intentions.

Draco didn't respond to her. There was a humming in his ear that was completely unrelated to the music and chatter in the background. He aimlessly stirred his drink with the pink umbrella, wondering whether he should drink it or not.

"What's in this?" he asked, indicating his drink.

The bartender frowned, looking immensely displeased that he hadn't said anything about her offer.

"It's mah specialty," she replied. "But dat's not what's important heah, sweetie. Lemme try agin. I thought I was bein' clear befo', but lemme try agin. Let's start ovuh. Mah name's Wendy. And you, handsome, what's yo' name?"

He didn't respond again, instead leaning forward to take a tentative sip of the concoction in front of him. It wasn't too bad, but Draco's body wasn't in the mood for anymore alcohol. He was up and off of the stool in seconds, fleeing from Wendy the bartender and the drink she'd made him and leaving her to look very disgruntled. Not for long - another man had attracted her attention and she was already turning to pepper him with sweet words.

Draco, on the other hand, found the nearest bathroom, flung open the first stall, and crouched by the basin of the toilet, his guts swirling around like a hurricane. He waited a few moments, waiting for something to happen, and then when his insides finally settled down, he breathed a sigh of relief.

Now he was standing up, heading to a sink to wash his hands and splash water on his face to clear his thoughts.

Looking into the mirror, Draco wasn't sure what he saw. A man with conflicted feelings stood staring back at him, his grey eyes like mirrors themselves, reflecting everything they saw and hiding everything they felt. But his face was not so stoic; he looked exhausted and done, with bags under his eyes and his lips drawn down in a permanent frown. He tried to muster up the energy to sneer condescendingly, but other than a slight twitch to his mouth, his face didn't move at all.

He looked much older than his twenty-one years of age. And, Draco supposed, he'd seen much more than an average twenty-one year old. But that didn't matter. It didn't matter that he and his family had suffered just as much as all the other families in the wizarding war that had dominated the last year of Draco's Hogwarts career, and it certainly didn't matter that he and his family had ultimately proved their loyalty to Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

All that mattered was the fact that the Malfoy's had started out as Death Eaters, and Death Eaters worked for Voldemort, and would you look at that, Voldemort was the Order of the Phoenix's enemy, so therefore no matter what, the Malfoy's must be evil and our enemy too.

Draco supposed it was fair. He couldn't complain about the trials that he and his parents had gone through as things settled down. They were reasonable, really. They'd deserved to go to Azkaban, in his mind.

But instead, of the three Malfoy's, only Lucius had gone off to prison, receiving the blunt of the blame thrown on his family. Narcissa was under house arrest for an unknown amount of time. The Ministry said ten years, but everyone knew that the truth was undeterminable. The Ministry just didn't want to think about or deal with former Death Eaters.

Azkaban would've been fine. So would house arrest, though Draco thought he might've eventually gone crazy if he'd had to wander the corridors of Malfoy Manor for ten years, unable to go out. But no! In an unexpected turn of events (which later Draco realized were not so unexpected), Harry Potter, the Golden Boy, Boy-Who-Lived, et cetera, had spoken at Draco's trial, defending the Malfoy heir. And after that, Hermione Granger had spoken, briefly, in his defense as well, and even the weasel bastard had uttered a few words. Draco was sure it was only in hope of gaining the Muggleborn's good opinion.

So no, Draco had not ended up with a prison sentence. Instead, he'd gotten a year of suspension from magic of any kind, and when he returned to the Ministry the next year to get his want reissued, they'd delivered the rest of his sentence; five hundred hours of community service.

Additionally, Draco had been struggling to find a job in the magical industry. But nobody would hire him; "We don't know if we can trust you," was the general message that seemed to be sent by potential employers. He'd considered a Muggle job, but then decided he had to keep _some_ of his dignity and pride.

To say the least, life had not been easy for him the last four years.

And the toll it had taken on him was quite clear, if the mirror in the bar bathroom was to be trusted.

He sighed again, regretful. "Sometimes," he told his reflection in the mirror, "I wish that I could start all over again."

His reflection said nothing back to him, and he said nothing back to his reflection. Instead, they just watched each other, identical expressions of sadness on their faces, watching each other watching each other, waiting for words that neither of them had. Finally, Draco looked away, covering his face in his hands.

"Look at me," he muttered. Then he looked at the ceiling. "Merlin, I'm so drunk. I hate everything. Malfoy's aren't supposed to get drunk. Urgh."

He was back in a stall again, and this time he was throwing up.

-.0

"Sugar! I was wonderin' where yuh went off tuh so quickly like dat, sweetie." Hardly having set foot from the toilettes, Draco found himself under the attentions of Wendy, who'd abandoned her position as bartender, once again. She patted him on the head as if he were nothing more than a puppy, mussing up his blonde hair that was probably already a mess anyway.

"Boy, youse sho looks ready to pass out on de floor any minute now!" she said, her voice shrill. "S'okay, dat's what's supposed to happen at bars, you know, wid all de alcohol and such. S'okay too, 'cause you still looks good. Say, I'm offa work now – got de manager to let me off early than normal – what you say tuh goin' down to a theater and catchin' a show? Just to start off – if yuh feel like doin' somemat else," – she winked suggestively – "all you has to do is say so."

Ugh. Draco still felt ill. He was really regretting all he'd had to drink, more than before. He could hardly think straight. So he said, "I wish I was eleven."

She laughed as if what he'd said was the funniest thing she'd ever heard. "Oh, honey, don't we all wish we was eleven again? Mind you, when I was eleven mah parents was so ovuhprotective. They wouldn't even let me talk to no boys 'til I moved out when I was seventeen. But dat's beside de point. Whatchu say 'bout dat show I was talkin' – hey, where you goin', sugar!"

She yelled words that didn't compute in Draco's mind as he disappeared into the crowd of dancing and drinking people, quickly disappearing from her sight. Pushing past multitudes of masses, he finally made it out of the bar and into the cool New York night.

That was where he lived now. New York, New York, America. He'd moved there a year ago, this October, in hope of escaping some of the British media attention and attention in general. Somehow, New York kept reminding him of his first years at Hogwarts. He wasn't sure how – Hogwarts, for one, was a magical castle in the countryside, whereas New York wasn't even in the country. It definitely had magical roots, but Draco had yet to encounter any type of magical thing, fantastic beast or wizard or otherwise.

But New York was a fresh start, where Draco could try to make amends and begin his life again with a clean slate, where he wasn't known for his pureblood roots or his mean demeanor or his ties to Voldemort.

It was cold for a September evening. Trees had turned orange and red and some had shed their leaves already. Draco took the subway – he still had limitations on travelling with magic, even though he was almost half a world away from the British Ministry and he'd been allowed a wand for three years now. It was also difficult to Apparate in such a busy city. Night certainly didn't chase people off the streets in New York; rather, it seemed to bring even more out. People at night had a different vibe than people during the day did. And even with the brightly lit lights of stores along the street brightening the world, Draco never felt completely comfortable walking about alone when it was dark.

Especially when drunk.

His apartment was small and messy, but relatively cheap to rent, which was what Draco was looking for. The Malfoy fortune that might've been his to inherit had gone to the Ministry as another recuperation for the war and the repair to damages it had caused. So Draco, for once in his life, found himself unable to depend on the source of money that had always been there; he had to work to keep change in his pocket, but he still didn't have any sort of job; instead, his mother sent him monthly checks with just enough money to get him through the month (there probably would've been enough to save up, but he kept blowing it all on drinks), money taken from the Black fortune, which Potter had been generous enough to grant her access to.

Draco definitely didn't want to think of how much he owed Potter at this point in his life. The boy he'd hated since he'd refused to shake Draco's hand at school was basically Draco's only source of income, basically the thing keeping him alive.

Sometimes Draco wished that he'd died in the battle of Hogwarts so he wouldn't have to deal with Potter anymore.

But it was what it was, and thinking about anything at all when he was this drunk was annoying and painful. He collapsed on the bed in his apartment, fully clothed. His last decipherable thought was, _what if I'd done things differently when I was younger?_ Then sleep kissed him away from the world of consciousness, and dragged him down to incoherent dreams.

-.0

Birds were singing when Draco woke up the next morning. He kept his eyes closed, waiting for a massive headache that was the consequence of hangover to kick in and agonize him. He was surprised and delighted when the pain didn't come, and snuggled into his sheets, trying to savor the blissful feeling of waking up from sleep before he had to get up.

He was startled beyond words when a loud peacock cry interrupted the birdsong.

 _Why the bloody hell am I hearing a peacock in New York City?_ he wondered, and then it occurred to him that he shouldn't even be able to hear birds singing over the hustle and bustle of traffic below. He whipped out of bed, only to find himself tangled among bed sheets and utterly confused. This wasn't his apartment bedroom. Why was he sleeping in a gigantic king size bed? Why was he wearing the silk green pajamas that he'd had throughout Hogwarts? Why was he in his old bedroom at Malfoy Manor? How had he gotten here over night?

 _I must've been really drunk,_ he thought.

There was a knock at his door. Hoping that his mother might enter and explain everything that was happening and the reason for his appearance at the manor, Draco called out, "Come in!"

The shock of seeing Dobby the house elf enter the room was nothing compared to the shock of hearing the sound of his voice. It was high and young-sounding, nothing like the lower tenor it had become after puberty. Draco's hands flew to his throat.

Then it occurred to him that one, Dobby was no longer the Malfoy's house elf, courtesy of one Harry Potter, and two, Dobby was dead.

"Time to get up, Master Draco!" Dobby's high voice interrupted his thoughts. Draco focused once more on the far too cheerful looking house elf and tried to comprehend what in the name of Merlin was going on. Almost unconsciously, he felt himself rising out of bed, and then Dobby was persistently pushing him along to the bathroom joined to his room.

"Hurry, young Master Draco!" Dobby squeaked. "Dobby was told to tell you that the Master and the Mistress to be expecting you downstairs!" The house elf bowed low to the ground, his long nose brushing the carpet. Then with a pop, he was gone, leaving Draco to wonder if he'd imagined his encounter with the deceased Dobby.

Then he looked into the bathroom mirror, feeling a brief feeling of déjà vu as he recalled looking at himself last night in the bathroom at the bar. There was a moment of silence as he drank in the sight of himself, and then his grey eyes widened in shock, and a scream ripped from his throat.

* * *

Sorry for the bad Southern accent spoken by Wendy. Also, for any mistakes and for slow first chapter.

Things'll get more interesting later. Please read and review. Thank you.


	2. The Rewinding Of His Time

Harry Potter and all its characters and storylines belong to J.K. Rowling.

* * *

 **Chapter Two - "The Rewinding Of His Timeline."**

Narcissa Malfoy was not a patient person. That was something to be expected of a woman who'd never once had to wait very long for something she wanted, who had her every need taken care of at once, and had so much power at the tips of her fingers. So as much as she loved her precious son Draco, she could never quite suppress a flicker of irritation whenever he took longer than the time she deemed sufficient to do something.

But even though she was admittedly impatient, there was only so long her son could take to get ready in the morning, even if today was a very special day for her Draco. She'd decided it was worth the effort to rise from the breakfast table that had recently been deserted by her husband and make her way to Draco's room, several floors away.

It was a sunny September morning, much to warm for the beginning of fall. It was as though the world was refusing to admit that summer was over, and that it was time to blend into the cooler months that Narcissa much preferred.

"Deedee!" Narcissa barked sharply as she strode along the proper hallways of Malfoy Manor. Immediately there was a crack and the called house elf was standing next to her, quickly falling into a hurried stride so as to keep up with her mistress.

"How can Deedee help you, Mistress Malfoy?" came the house elf's high-pitched squeak.

"Did a house elf go up to Draco's room this morning to wake him up?" Narcissa demanded, not breaking stride for a moment as she pushed forward.

"Dobby went up this morning, ma'am," Deedee replied, her large eyes sparkling anxiously.

"What's taking so long, then?" Narcissa asked.

"Deedee doesn't know, ma'am, but she could – " the house elf began, and then cut off, seeing Narcissa's raised hand.

"That's enough," the female Malfoy said severely, noting disdainfully the way the house elf flinched at her tone, head bowing submissively like a child who knew she'd misbehaved and was facing by inevitable punishment. "You're dismissed. There's no need to bow."

Deedee, half way down to the ground already, immediately straightened up again, looking as embarrassed as a house elf could. "Of course, Mistress Malfoy, Deedee apologizes for her bad, bad behavior!"

"Out of my sight, please," Narcissa snapped briskly. She hated to be rude to the house elves, but she felt the need to speak strictly with them. They were not inferior beings, per se, but she'd found that they had a tendency to stay underfoot when they weren't specifically dismissed, going on and on with unnecessary apologies.

"Of course, Mistress Malfoy, of – " Deedee's sentence was cut off by her crack as she Disapparated from the hallway, which echoed off the silent walls which stood cold and unmoving like ice.

Only a few steps in advance, Narcissa suddenly heard screaming. How she had not heard it before was a mystery; the air was still, and any sound should've carried through the cold hallways. But Malfoy Manor had an air of untouchable stillness that could hardly be disrupted. Hair raising on the back of her neck, she walked even more quickly, trying to get to Draco's room as fast as she could without running – Malfoy's didn't run. It messed up their hair and got them all sweaty and tired, which were other things Malfoy's didn't do; sweaty and tired.

The door to Draco's room was brown with polished silver serpentine handles. Narcissa raised her hand do them and knocked once, waiting impatiently like normal for Draco or Dobby to answer. When there was nothing but more screaming, she pushed open the doors, barely suppressing her alarm, and drawing her wand, walked to the source of the screaming.

She wasn't sure what she'd expected. Perhaps to see Dobby screaming as he hurt himself in punishment for some misdemeanor, or perhaps Draco screaming as Dobby did so. She did not expect Draco to be standing in the mirror, staring at his reflection, and screaming as he held his throat.

Dobby looked utterly alarmed and unsure of what to do, spluttering, "Master Draco, please be quiet. Master Draco, what's wrong?"

Narcissa's first thought was, _my baby's been poisoned!_ She flew to his side, immediately letting loose a list of spells designed to slow down poison in the bloodstream. When Draco did nothing but scream louder at her sudden appearance, she silenced him with a wave her wand, her concern beginning to border on annoyance.

"Draco, darling, what's the matter?" she exclaimed, shooing away Dobby, who was offering his apologies for failing to satisfy Draco and trying to help. "You're dismissed, Dobby. Draco, Draco, my dragon, what's the matter? Why are you screaming?"

Draco's mouth was still stretched wide in a silent scream, his silver eyes blown wide with shock. He pointed to her like he couldn't believe she was there, and then seemed to come to terms with something in his mind, and put his head down in his hands.

The silencing spell wore off quickly. The first words from his mouth were, "Bloody hell, I've had too much to drink."

Narcissa was unsure if this was a joke of some kind; Draco was a bit overly fond of pulling pranks on his mother and father and the house elves whenever he was able to get away with mischief. But something in his voice told her this was not a trick.

"Draco." Her voice was severe, unapproving. "What is the meaning of this? We've got an hour before we need to be at the train station. Why are you doing this? Explain yourself, young man."

His mouth opened and closed, reminding Narcissa of the fish one of her Slytherin roommates had had during sixth year. Then he said, "It's 1991. I'm eleven."

Narcissa pursed her lips. Whatever this was, she had already had enough of it. She stood up from the floor, where she realized she'd been kneeling next to her son, and placed a firm hand on Draco's shoulder. "That's enough, Draco. Get ready quickly, and come down to the dining room for your breakfast. The house elves will make sure everything you need is ready. I expect you to cease whatever this is by the time you come down for breakfast. Am I understood?"

He gaped at her again, but then quickly shut his mouth when he realized what he was doing. Giving her a small nod, he turned away from his mother, fixing his eyes once more on the mirror like he was looking at himself for the very first time after a sudden transformation.

Narcissa swept from the room, muttering about Lucius being a bad influence on her son.

-.0

Draco couldn't believe it. That much should've been obvious. He'd screamed until his throat was raw, and then screamed some more when his mother had entered the room uttering curses and looking years younger than the last time he'd seen her.

He knew that it was very un-Malfoy-like and very rude to scream, especially in a woman's face, but he couldn't stop. It was like his body was trying to get some of its frustration about the turn his life had taken after the war and its complete shock of waking up in the eleven-year-old version of itself all at once at the same time. The only thing that had stopped him was a snapped _Silencio_ from his mother.

 _My dragon. Draco._ Names his mother hadn't called him for years now. The last time she'd seen him, she'd simply addressed him as Mr. Malfoy, like he was nothing more than a distant acquaintance or someone Narcissa was conducting business with. The show of affection from his normally emotionless mother made his heartache with longing and homesickness.

 _What am I doing here?_ He stared at himself again as his mother's footsteps exited his room, heels clopping on the carpeted floor with muffled thumps. _Why am I here? How am I here?_ His brain tried to sort through a jumble of confused thoughts in an attempt to come up with some semblance of an idea as to how any of this was possible. _Time travel? Aging potion? Penseive? Spell? Curse? Dream? Some awful prank instituted by the Ministry to make me regret my past even more?_ Then he thought, _bloody Merlin, I've had way to much to drink. Just what did that waitress put into my drink?_

Draco pinched himself. When nothing happened, he pinched himself again, and then another time, and another, until his arm was sore and covered in nail marks. He overruled the possibility that this was all a dream because he hadn't woken up yet. _Unless I have high pain tolerance or something in this dream,_ his mind added. He overruled the Penseive theory as well, because both Dobby and his mother had interacted with him, and this wasn't like any kind of Penseive memory Draco had experienced. Time travel didn't make sense either, because then, wouldn't he still be his twenty-one year old self, and there would just be two of him? And he couldn't explain the aging potion theory either.

Maybe it was still 2001 and this was some extremely elaborate spell or something. That was a possibility. His mother hadn't confirmed the date.

Most importantly, he wanted to know _what_ he was doing here, or why he was eleven again. Early in his life, he'd been told by someone that everything in life happened for a reason. Draco believed wholeheartedly that this was something made up to make some poor soul feel better (even though the person who told him was not a poor soul), but perhaps this was actually true.

Perhaps everything did happen for a reason, and Draco just had to figure out why he was eleven again. And perhaps after he figured that out, he'd be able to go back to his life in New York. Even if he was miserable and lonely in the future (which had been his present), at least everything made sense in that time.

Summing it up, Draco concluded that in order to find out what in the name of Merlin had happened to him, he would have to do as his mother had told him. Get ready and go down to breakfast. Then he'd have to ask his questions.

-.0

It was with extreme apprehension that Draco strode into the dining room only a few minutes after his musings in the bathroom. His first day of Hogwarts seemed like a lifetime ago, even though it had only been a decade since, and he could hardly remember what had happened.

He had a strong recollection of Potter's burning green eyes fixing on his before he'd uttered those faithful words: "I think I can tell who the wrong sort are for myself, thanks." He could remember the strong feeling of hurt and the anger of being rejected – _how dare Potter reject my friendship! Doesn't he know who I am? Who does he think he is? –_ that Draco had hastily covered up with threatening hostility. He could also remember the dulled sense of triumph that had been nothing in comparison to a stab of disappointment that had pierced him when the Sorting Hat had placed him into Slytherin without even a second thought. He could remember thinking something along the lines of, _Just because I'm a Malfoy, doesn't mean I automatically belong in Slytherin. You could at least think about where to put me a bit longer, couldn't you?_

He also distinctly remembered Crabbe and Goyle sneaking down sweets to the Slytherin common room that first evening, and then several months later, finding they'd stashed those sweets away and attracted an infestation of rats.

But that was beside the point.

Draco might've remembered those things, but he certainly didn't recall the solemn faces of his parents and the man he never expected to see alive again greeting him as he entered the dining room.

"G-good morning," he gulped, internally scolding himself for stuttering. If it had just been his parents, he would've been fine. Sure, it was bizarre to see his father sitting at the head of the table in the ornate black chair that later would seat Voldemort, strange to see Lucius's long blonde hair so neatly groomed, sneer in place, black-gloved hand clutching the infamous snake-headed cane. It was strange to see his mother to the right of the table, her hair just as impeccable as her husband's, her eyes fixed forward, unblinking.

But Draco was shaken at the presence of Severus Snape at the table, looking calm and aloof and completely unaware that he was dead in the timeline Draco was from. It was scary to see the potions master in his usual set of black robes, his arms folded across his chest and his mouth drawn down in a frown of disapproval that rarely morphed into a smile.

 _He's dead._

"What are you doing here?" Draco managed to choke out after a painful moment of silence. Nobody had bothered to answer his polite greeting of good morning, so he was once again the first to break the cold silence that swirled around the Malfoy's like their own personal storm (Draco, of course, had never quite perfected the art of silence that made another uncomfortable and tense like his parents and godfather had).

"Draco," Lucius finally spoke, his voice carefully monotone, "is that any way to greet your godfather?"

Draco gulped. It suddenly occurred to him that his eleven-year-old self was very used to Snape's presence around the house.

"Sorry," he muttered. His heart was beating wildly in his chest and, not for the first time, he wished that he were back in his New York apartment where he knew what was happening, at least vaguely.

"Sit down, Draco." His mother's voice was just as cold as his father's. He was used to this tone of voice from his parents. Growing up, he'd know that Narcissa and Lucius had truly loved him, but it was always hard to believe that from the way the spoke to and addressed him.

They were parents who expected their child to obey without question. They loved him because he was their son, yes, but they did not admit their pride in him easily. They wanted what was best for him, and they wanted him to do their best. He was, after all, the only heir.

Draco seated himself in the chair he normally sat at for meals with his family. As he cut neatly into his breakfast, he realized both his parents had already eaten, and that both they and Snape were staring at him with intent eyes.

He swallowed his morsel of food, and finally couldn't stand the unbearably painful and uncomfortable silence. "Yes?" he asked.

Narcissa scanned her son's face with an inscrutable gaze. "We'd like to know, what, exactly, you meant earlier when I spoke to you, Draco."

"What do you mean?" Draco asked.

Lucius sighed, the first to break the cold mask. "Draco, son," he said, sounding like the father he would never allow himself to be in public. "Your mother told me about how she found you screaming in the bathroom this morning, and the words you said to her after she silenced you. Is everything all right? This is very unlike you."

Laughing shakily, Draco replied, "Of course, Father. I'm just…really excited for the first day of Hogwarts."

His mother allowed a smile to crack across her face. "We are very excited for you too, Draco. But if you're not feeling well, we think it might be best if you waited a few days before you headed off to Hogwarts."

Draco's eyes nearly bugged out of his head. "Excuse me?" he said in disbelief. Never, in all his years of schooling, even during sixth year when he'd complained about feeling ill, had his parents ever brought up the notion of letting him skip school. His father, particularly, was furious whenever Draco mentioned illness, because being sick was considered a sign of weakness, and Draco couldn't be his best if he wasn't feeling well.

 _I'm eleven,_ he reminded himself. _Things were different when I was eleven._

"We said, it might be better for you to stay home a bit," Narcissa repeated. "We could contact the headmaster – "

"Nonsense, Narcissa," Snape cut across smoothly. Draco winced at the sound of his deceased godfather's voice. "There's no need for him to stay home. If Draco is feeling unwell, I will see to it that he gets better."

"Thank you, Severus," the female Malfoy said, dipping her head. "But if Draco – "

"Would you look at the time," Snape interrupted once more. "I think it's about time you take Draco to the station for departure to Hogwarts."

Narcissa made an uncharacteristic noise of frustration, but seemed unable to muster up the courage or energy to say anything else. Draco took another bite of his breakfast, and then stood up hastily from his chair.

"Is that all, sweetie?" Narcissa asked in alarm, staring at the small amount of food Draco had eaten. "You hardly touched your breakfast at all! It's a big day – you need all the energy you can get."

"I'm fine, Mother." Draco was already at the door of the dining hall, pushing it open.

Whether his mother responded, he didn't know. He slammed the large door shut and nearly fell against the opposite wall, breathing hard. _Severus Snape. Is alive. In this version of time. Where I'm eleven._ He closed his silver eyes, trying to take it all in, his mind more confused than before. _And I'm going to Hogwarts again. Voldemort's not out there yet. This is another chance._

Then, the first delighted thought about this situation entered his mind. _Merlin, I already know all the first-year material! Granger, you better watch out. I'm not going to be second-best to a Mudblood_ this _time around._

Heading back up to his room, a smile broke out on his eleven-year-old face. He still needed to figure out what he was doing back at this point in time, what exactly he needed to do to get back to the present, and multitudes of other things, but perhaps, there was a benefit to the rewinding of his timeline.

* * *

A/N: Thank you for the reviews and all the favorites and follows. That means a lot. Hopefully, this chapter was not a disappointment.

Again, sorry for a slow plotline. Chapter three will introduce more Harry Potter characters, as Draco will go to Platform nine-and-three-quarters.

There is a poll on my profile page that I'd greatly appreciate if you would take the time to do. Just want to know what house you think Draco would be in. Originally planned on Gryffindor but worried that this is to cliche. Please take the poll or let me know in a comment. Thank you.


	3. Excitement Shiver Down His Spine

Harry Potter and all its characters and storylines belong to J.K. Rowling.

* * *

 **Chapter Three - "Thrill Of Excitement Shiver Down His Spine."**

Draco was not overwhelmed by the hustle and bustle of King's Cross. In fact, compared to the streets of New York he'd grown accustomed to, the once seemingly-overcrowded-and-noisy station felt almost empty.

His parents had slipped back into their Malfoy masks, hardly speaking to him as they entered the train station and certainly not taking the time to speak to any of the Muggles milling about the building. As they strode through the crowd, which seemed to part like waves, Draco heard his father mutter something about Muggle inferiority. Instead of the normal feeling of self-righteousness Draco got whenever he used to hear his father speak poorly of the non-magical community - _that's right, Muggles are clearly inferior to wizards, I'm so much better than a Muggle, Muggles are filthy and hardly human -_ Draco just felt annoyed.

 _We're all human,_ he wanted to tell his father.

His father wasn't a bad person. He just wanted what was best for his family, and would stop at nothing to get in the Ministry's good books. Lucius Malfoy was not opposed to bribery. In his eyes, he was doing the right thing, the thing that would protect his family and elevate them to a better status level. And he truly did believe that purebloods were the superior beings in the world; halfbloods were decent, Mudbloods filthy, Muggles even filthier than Mudbloods, and Squibs…well, in his eyes, they were the worst kind of being, freaks of nature.

They'd reached the platform by now. His parents were not very careful when it came to running through the barrier between platforms nine and ten. He recalled his father saying something about Muggle obliviousness to what was in plain sight and their stupidity of not realizing that a wizarding train platform was in the middle of King's Cross, but Draco was pretty sure his father had told him that before his fourth year of Hogwarts, so he didn't say anything about this incase knowing it aroused suspicion.

"Here we are," his mother announced. She gave Draco a look from the corner of her eyes, monitoring his expression, which was less than excited. Remembering his delight when he'd first seen the gleaming red Hogwarts Express, Draco tried to fix his expression into that of a typical first-year. A strained smile lit on his face, and then promptly fell off again like a bird perching on ice, claws scratching wildly at the smooth and unforgiving surface as it fell to the ground in a flurry of cold feathers.

"Whoa," he said, feeling extremely underwhelmed. "A train."

His mother sighed. "How observant of you, Draco."

"We must hurry," his father said, his expression over his shoulder the only sign that he'd heard Draco's words. "I've got important business to attend to."

Draco was used to this. His father _always_ had some kind of important thing to go to, so much that Draco had at one point wondered if Lucius actually didn't have anything to do at all and was only saying he had stuff to do to appear occupied. If Draco recalled correctly, in his original timeline, his first year at Hogwarts was the only time his father had accompanied him to the train station to see him off. Every other time, it had only been his mother, and in later years, even she had refrained from coming.

Lucius used magic (a Malfoy never actually needed to do any kind of dirty work when they could utilize magic, and even if they couldn't even touch their wand, they still never did the dirty work) to levitate Draco's school trunk into it's proper place on the train, and then he gave his son a brief lecture on the importance of upholding the Malfoy name, which Draco, by this point, knew by heart.

"Additionally, Draco," Lucius continued even after he'd finished the usual spiel, "it is of extreme importance that you befriend Harry Potter, who will be attending school and is of the same age as you. It's a simple task. Don't fail me on this. Acquaint yourself with Harry Potter. His trust in you will be an extreme asset to us in the future."

Draco now knew the meaning behind his father's words. But his eleven-year-old self had probably been fairly oblivious to Lucius's goals and loyalty to Voldemort. So he said, perhaps sounding too chipper, "Okay, Father!"

Lucius patted his son on the head, careful not to muss up the neatly combed hair. He then frowned. "Draco, I thought I told you to gel your hair back."

 _Oops._ Draco had forgotten that in his younger years, he'd taken meticulous care to gel his hair back into a platinum helmet, not a single lock out of place. He'd fallen out of that habit by sixth year, when there were far too many more pressing matters to attend to. But thinking back on it, he'd looked absolutely _ridiculous_ with his hair like that. He didn't want to go to school with his hair slicked down as if it had been licked by a goat and looking so perfect it was unnatural.

So he said, "I thought Malfoy's looked perfect no matter what?"

His father pursed his lips, and Narcissa's face cracked a small smile as she patted her son on the head. "You are perfect no matter what," she said, her voice low so as not to be overheard by any of the other families gathered on the platform. "But you must listen to your father when he tells you something."

"A Malfoy never looks anything but his best," Lucius hissed through clenched teeth, his grey eyes narrowed to slits. The train's whistle blew at that moment, which might've been lucky, as the eldest Malfoy was looking rather murderous. "Time for you to go, Draco. Remember all that I've told you. Find Crabbe and Goyle. Befriend Harry Potter. Be a proud Slytherin."

Barely suppressing a snort at the way his father naturally assumed that Draco would get into Slytherin (even if Lucius was right), Draco turned away from his father and began to walk towards the train. He stopped when he felt his mother lightly wrap her arms around him in a half hug, and place a feather-light kiss on his un-gelled hair. Then he was moving again, and climbing onto the train.

-.0

Draco still hadn't found a compartment when the train lurched into motion. He'd seen Crabbe and Goyle sitting in one, looking at the door expectantly. He remembered that, the first time he'd gone through this, Draco had pushed open the compartment door in one fluid and grand movement, and relished in the looks of utter relief that had flitted over his cronies' faces when they'd seen him, their expressions akin to lost puppies who'd been wandering around far too long on their own. He'd taken much joy in bossing the other boys around seeing them respond to his orders like his own personal servants.

But now. Now things were different. Even though he'd known that by going on the train, he would've met Crabbe and Goyle, it hadn't occurred to him that he actually had to go meet them if he was going to stay on track of original time. But when he thought of walking into the compartment like he had the first time, his stomach twisted into knots, as if he were going to vomit up the alcohol he'd had from last night ten years in the future. Crabbe was dead in his timeline, consumed by the fire that had burned the Room of Requirement. Goyle and Draco were no longer friends, either, having drifted apart. Draco had tried hard to repair the relationship he'd had with his remaining companion, but Goyle had not been interested.

"If I associate with you," Goyle had told him in their final meeting at a café in London, "then I'm going to just get into more trouble." His friend had lost considerable amounts of weight since Draco had last seen him – he hardly even touched the mug of coffee in front of him, opting instead to stare out the window at the hazy sunlit street outside.

This had been a huge blow to Draco's pride and his feelings. But Goyle was right. Nobody wanted to associate with Malfoy's anymore, because the connotations of the name were not good.

Draco didn't want to see his friends now, as eleven-year-olds, beaming and smiling at him, ready to listen and obey his every command. The innocence in their actions was almost painful; they'd been raised the same way Draco had, but somehow, they hadn't been exactly mean when Draco had met them for the first time. It had been Draco who had turned them into the bullies they'd been known as at Hogwarts.

So that's why he hadn't entered their compartment like he'd done so the first time, in his original timeline. Instead, he continued to wander around the train, passing several compartments so many times that the occupants began to give him suspicious and annoyed looks at his frequent passes. As he shuffled past people, he heard the flutter of a rumor that he recalled circulating aboard the express in original time – _Harry Potter is on the train! That's right, the very Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, is going to Hogwarts this year!_

If Draco had still been his eleven-year-old self, he probably would've been excited to know this, speaking Harry Potter's name scathingly as he remarked to Crabbe and Goyle, "Well, well, boys, looks like we've got _Harry Potter's_ company to look forward to. I'm sure he'll bless us with all his fame and glory and fail to shut up about how bloody amazing he thinks he is." But underneath the scorn and sarcasm about Potter's greatness, there was an underlying tone of admiration and excitement – _I'm going to by Harry Potter's friend,_ he recalled his cocky thoughts.

When a fourth-year Ravenclaw girl asked him why he hadn't seated himself in a compartment, Draco decided it was time to find someone to sit with. He wasn't sure how long he was going to be stuck in this past present, but, he decided, because he was here indefinitely, it might be best to find some friends so he wouldn't be all alone.

He finally halted in front of the compartment made special by the fact that it seated Harry Potter. Harry Potter, and one red-headed, freckle-faced Weasley who had unfairly been the lucky one to befriend the famous Scarhead.

Draco had every intention of walking right past the compartment and finding instead one with several Ravenclaws-to-be, maybe Terry Boot and Anthony Goldstein. They weren't Slytherins, but as Draco was intently boycotting all of his house's company, Ravenclaws, he felt, were the next best thing. He didn't know them very well, so even though he knew that, by some unspoken rule, they hated his actions in original time, he didn't know them well enough to have formed solid opinions on them.

Besides, at least with a Ravenclaw, one could have an intelligent conversation that didn't revolve around idiotic and impulsive bravery or sappy and over-the-top sympathy for all.

But some part of Draco held his weakness.

 _What if, this time around, if you do things differently, you end up being friends with Potter?_ it suggested in a tentative voice. _Maybe this is your chance to improve your career at Hogwarts, see the world from a different perspective…_

Another voice in his head seemed to shudder in disgust. _If I'm friends with Potter, then that means I have to be friends with the poor Weasel and the stupid Mudblood._

And yet another part of him was saying, _If you befriend Potter, imagine all the blackmail you'll have about him. You could pull so many pranks on him, because you probably know more about Potter than Potter does about himself._

Draco blamed this third voice for his next actions. Pushing past a few gaping second years, who glared at the contact, he pushed open the compartment door and immediately felt overwhelmed when he became the subject of two curious gazes. A set of green eyes was fixed on him, much more piercing than the other pair of blue. Draco took a deep breath, trying to find the words that he'd used when he first tried to befriend Potter, so long ago.

 _Well, don't use those words,_ he thought to himself, _because those words didn't get you Potter as your friend._

"Is it true?" he asked. "They're saying all down the train that Harry Potter's in this compartment. So it's you, is it?"

 _Bloody Merlin, I sound like some fanboy or something,_ Draco thought disgustedly. His voice had not come out commanding and cold as he'd intended it to. He did not sound like a Malfoy. He sounded like a second-year Hufflepuff who'd just experienced his first voice crack in the middle of singing in front of the Great Hall. Draco had half a mind to walk out of the compartment and never come back.

"Yes," Potter replied. He sounded friendly, much friendlier than the blonde had known him to be. To be fair, they'd been enemies, so it was very unrealistic if Potter had acted nice to Draco, but still.

 _Perhaps not sounding commanding and cold is a good thing,_ Draco decided. Now what had he said?

 _Oh, this is Crabbe and this is Goyle,_ a memory replayed in his head. Almost unconsciously, he looked around and recalled that the two boys who normally hovered over his shoulder were not present, and he knew why.

"Well," Draco began, "I'm Malfoy. Draco Malfoy."

 _Now you sound like James Bond,_ he thought, recalling the popular Muggle movie series about the famous British spy. Draco had particularly liked this series, and he wasn't sure why. Malfoys weren't supposed to like anything Muggle. Oh well. Too late to take back his words now.

He became aware that the introduction of his name had gained a barely suppressed snort of laughter from the youngest Weasley boy. He knew that if he wanted any chance at befriending Potter, he should just let the insulting laugh go, but for some reason, he couldn't. Perhaps it was his extreme dislike of the Weasley family (particularly Ron), or maybe because he just hated people making fun of his name, but Draco found himself snapping at the redhead.

"Think my name's funny, do you?" he sneered. And then new words burst from his lips, catching him off guard as his face relaxed into a slightly friendlier expression. "Don't worry, so do I. I'm named after a constellation – sort of a family tradition. But my family's seen worse names, so I guess I can't complain." He paused, and then added, even though he knew perfectly well who the Weasley was, "And you are?"

Weasley looked rather taken aback at Draco's words. For a few moments he simply let his mouth hang open, his sniggering about Draco's name forgotten. "Oh. Well, um, I'm Ron Weasley."

"As articulate as ever, too," Draco couldn't help but say. Now he turned to Potter. "There's no need to ask who you are. I suppose you must appreciate your name being so well known? No need to introduce yourself."

Potter's face colored, matching Weasley's hair in color. "I suppose?"

Draco moved on briskly. He noted the assortment of sweets from the lunch witch, and almost carelessly scooped up the nearest bag of Bertie Botts Every Flavored Beans.

"Do you mind if I join you? Everywhere else is full, and I'm famished."

The two exchanged looks silently, and then both nodded in unison.

There was a few minutes of silence, in which Draco sorted through the flavors of jellybeans and picked out the ones he liked, and in which Potter and Weasley observed the blonde as if he were some unusual specimen they'd never seen before.

"You're not like I thought you'd be," Weasley said at last after Draco had popped a bubblegum bean in his mouth.

"What do you mean?" Draco asked.

"I've heard of your family," Ron said all in a rush, seeming to blurt out information as it came to his head. "You were some of the first to come back to our side after You-Know-Who disappeared. Said you'd been bewitched. Sorry, I shouldn't say that – "

"I said that?" Draco asked, slightly bemused.

"Well, I didn't mean 'you' as in _you,_ just as in your family," the Weasley explained.

"Like I said before, you're as articulate as ever, Weasley."

"You're the boy I met at Madame Malkin's, aren't you?" Potter asked now.

Draco tried very hard to recall what Potter was talking about. He'd been to Madame Malkin's multitudes of times in his Hogwarts' career and after, so it was difficult to recall a single time he'd been there. He remembered sixth year, visiting the robe shop, particularly vividly, but that was because he'd been trying very hard to hide his Dark Mark.

It suddenly occurred to him that he no longer bore Voldemort's claiming symbol any longer, and spent an entire moment looking at the smooth unmarred flesh of his arm, much to the confusion of Weasley and Potter, who probably thought he had a strange arm obsession of some sort.

Luckily, the last third of the Golden Trio arrived to spare Draco the awkwardness of explaining himself.

It was almost funny, the way Granger practically flung herself into the compartment, like she was desperate to announce her attention. He'd forgotten how utterly ridiculously bushy her brown hair was, and how large her front teeth had seemed when she was eleven. She looked extremely condescending – Draco's father would've been proud by the way she seemed to silently say, _I'm right, you're wrong, listen to me!_ If only he'd been skilled enough to build that persona around himself. Perhaps befriending her wouldn't be such a terrible thing after all; he could try to figure out how she did that.

"Can we help you with something?" Weasley said after another few seconds of silence.

"You'd better hurry up and put your robes on, I've just been to the front to ask the conductor, and he says we're nearly there," she said, her voice just as bossy as Draco remembered it to be. He suddenly felt alarmed when she turned to examine him. "You're new. I haven't seen you before. What's your name?"

Draco cleared his throat, quickly covering up his arm, which he realized he'd still been staring at and stroking, marveling at the fact that it was bare of any trace of the Dark Mark. "Ahem. I'm Draco. Draco Malfoy."

She stared at his arm, even though it was concealed beneath his robes, which he already had on, as if wondering why he'd been so fascinated by it. "Pleasure," she said at last, wrinkling her nose. The expression that this movement created gave her a rather chipmunk-like appearance, and Draco caught himself. Chipmunks were cute. Or the closest thing to cute, because a Malfoy never thought something was cute. Mudbloods, especially Granger, were not cute, so therefore, with logical reasoning, Granger simply couldn't resemble a chipmunk, because the implications this comparison had were nothing good.

He found himself clearing his throat, trying to think of something to say to either divert her gaze away from him, or, better yet, get her to leave the compartment all together. Her stare was sinking into his skin like a snake's fangs, and as much as he liked snakes, he didn't like the bushy-haired know-it-all.

"Would you mind leaving while we change?" the ginger requested, interrupting the thick silence that had descended over the compartment like a blanket of wet snow. Draco would never admit how grateful he was for Weasley at that very moment.

Slightly startled by the way Granger rolled her eyes in complete and utter exasperation, Draco got a mouthful of bushy hair as she turned back to the other boys, breaking away her gaze from him.

"All right – I only came in here because people outside are behaving very childishly, racing up and down the corridors," she said in a sniffy voice, before continuing. "And you've got dirt on your nose, by the way, did you know?"

Without waiting for a reply, she whirled out of the compartment again in a whirl of hair and robes and fussiness. Weasley glared after her, and then relaxed his gaze the moment he turned to look at the other boys in the compartment with him. The unguarded friendliness in the ginger's blue eyes unnerved Draco. For a moment, he almost wished he was Granger for the sake of normalcy; being on the receiving end of the Weasel's glare.

 _Wow, and this whole time I've been thinking that the Golden Trio was friends from the start,_ he thought.

"It's true though," Draco muttered.

"What is?" Weasley asked as he and Harry moved about the compartment, pulling out their robes.

"You've got dirt on your nose," Draco explained as patiently as he could manage. Like his mother, he was not a very patient person and was easily annoyed when people did not immediately understand him.

Ah, there was the glare. Draco felt himself relaxing for the first time under the intense look of anger from Weasley, but then immediately tensed up when he realized that this glare wasn't genuine – it was a look of fake disapproval and anger.

Potter and Weasley had a ball changing into their robes, joking and laughing and acting like they'd already known each other for years (in Draco's original time, they had by now). Meanwhile, the whole strangeness of the situation bore down on Draco.

He was eleven. He was about to go to Hogwarts, where he might not be a Slytherin this time around. He had avoided his Slytherin housemates, who he'd wanted to see more than ever during his time in New York. Weirdest of all, he had just befriended Potter and Weasley and spoken civilly to Granger without a single insult, even a veiled one, in conversation.

It bothered him that he found that fact the strangest. He was _eleven_ for Merlin's sake, a twenty-one-year-old stuck in a hardly teenaged body. He didn't know how or why it had happened, and he didn't know how he was supposed to get back to the future he knew.

 _Maybe you can't get back,_ he thought, his mind shifting like dunes in the desert, thoughts running over each other like sand, each grain an individual being but lost in the sea of thoughts. _Maybe that's why you're here. To have a better future, to change the future, to stop people from dying – I could stop Dumbledore from dying, and Snape, and Crabbe. Of course, Snape and Crabbe would be my priority. Dumbledore's not that important,_ he amended.

 _And then of course, this all might be a dream somehow._ Out the window, he could see the flickering lights of Hogwarts castle appear out of the inky darkness. The train whistled. He could smell the Bertie Bott's Every Flavored Beans sitting in his lap and feel its weight. Weasley accidentally smacked him with his robe, and could feel the fibers in the material and hear the hasty apologies from the redhead over the chugging of the train.

 _If it's a dream, it's very realistic,_ his doubtful voice added its input.

"We will be reaching Hogwarts in five minutes' time. Please leave your luggage on the train, it will be taken to the school separately." A cool voice cut across Draco's thoughts, making him jump slightly in surprise. He had didn't recall ever hearing such an announcement before on the train.

Looking around at the faces of his new…friends – he supposed that's indeed what they were now – he saw that both Potter and Weasley looked rather nervous. It was funny. He didn't recall being nervous on his first night at Hogwarts. He hadn't been worried about the Sorting; he knew that he would be put into Slytherin regardless of any thoughts he had. But of course, he was a Malfoy, and Malfoy's didn't do nervous (he was not going to comment about any of his feelings before, during, or after the war). So it was expected that other, non-Malfoy first-years would've been experiencing nerves.

"Are you excited?" he asked, trying to ease the increasingly pale faces on the other boys' faces. He immediately bashed himself for the stupid question, wishing he'd thought of something much cleverer to say.

But Potter and Weasley seemed to appreciate him asking. The Boy-Who-Lived lifted his shoulders into a shrug that turned into a shudder, seeming to be too nervous to actually open his mouth and speak. The redhead, on the other hand, began speaking adamantly about the Sorting.

"It's some sort of test, I think," he explained, his blue eyes widening as he waved his arms around to emphasize his point, nearly smacking Draco in the face. "Fred – that's one of my older brother's, you met him, didn't you, Harry? – anyway, Fred said it hurts a lot, but I think he was joking."

Weasley's words clearly did nothing in favor of Potter's own anxiety. Instead, the boy who'd been Draco's childhood rival looked about ready to faint.

"A test?" he managed. "In front of the whole school? But we don't know any magic yet – what are we going to do?"

Draco rolled his eyes. "Relax. The Sorting is really easy and the likelihood of getting injured is slim to none, unless the hat bites you or something, but it doesn't have any teeth, so that wouldn't hurt all that much. It might be able to smother you, though."

"'The hat'?" Weasley echoed incredulously.

"Weasley, haven't you got several older brothers?" Draco asked without really asking, because he already knew perfectly well that the redhead did, indeed, have five older brothers who all possessed the same fiery red locks.

"Yes," the Weasel replied. "How'd you know that?"

Draco ignored the question, instead opting for raising an eyebrow. "Really? Then I'm surprised you don't know how the Sorting works."

At that moment the train lurched to a stop, and there was a mad scramble to get off and onto the platform.

The night outside was a cold, unrelenting beast. Its teeth bit down on Draco's skin, piercing through the black robes that he was clad in and chilling him. He did not remember it being so cold on this early fall night. But so much had happened to him over the years; remembering a temperature wasn't very important.

It was hard to see much above the moving masses of Hogwarts students moving around the platform. Draco had been a rather short eleven-year-old, and his height was something he was unused to. He found himself very frustrated by this new restraint.

And then a lamp lit up the darkness, and the moving mountain named Hagrid had appeared, yelling to gather up the first-years.

The familiarity of getting off the Hogwart's Express to go to the castle brought nostalgia to Draco. He missed the simple act of climbing off the train to go to school, he missed watching the first-years being Sorted into their houses and laughing at their terrified expressions with his fellow Slytherins, and cheering when they got a new housemate. He missed watching the food from the kitchens appear magically on the table. He missed the treacle tart. He even missed Dumbledore's odd and seemingly random speeches.

But, if he truly was reliving this experience again, then he could re-see all his past experiences with different eyes. He could change things.

As he set off after Hagrid, alongside Potter, Weasley, and the other first-years, he felt, for the first time since waking up as his eleven-year-old self, a thrill of excitement shiver down his spine.

* * *

A/N: Thank you again for all the kind reviews, follows, and favorites. I am so appreciative of all the support.

Also, thank you for telling me what house you think Draco would be in this time around. Next chapter he will be sorted into his house. It will be either Ravenclaw and Gryffindor.

Additionally I apologize that I do not have a regular updating schedule as of now and for any errors you might see in my writing. I am not a very good proofreader. Thank you again.

MagicornIs1: **Okay thank you for your opinion. No I did not know that Tom Felton got Gryffindor but that's really cool. I also have not read his greatest wish but I might check it out. Thank you.  
** Acute-angle-101: **Thank you, I am glad to know that you like the idea. Hopefully I will have another chapter out next week. Thank you.  
** margaretl16: **I am glad to know you are enjoying the story. Hopefully I will have the next chapter out next week. Thank you.  
** rhythmsbluegirl: **Thank you I am glad you thought so. Hopefully I will have the next chapter out next week. Thank you.  
** Guest: **I am sorry you cannot access the poll and thank you for your opinion.  
** Pandabear1415: **I am glad to know that you like it. Hopefully I will have the next chapter out next week and hopefully you will also like the different changes he makes. Thank you.  
** JCJ58: **Thank you for your kind words and for giving me your opinion. I'm glad that you have faith in me, and hopefully I can deliver. Hopefully I will have another chapter out next week.  
** Guest: **Sorry about the poll and thank you for your opinion. Yes he could go in Slytherin again. I was thinking about writing the story in such away that he got sorted into Ravenclaw,** **Slytherin, and Gryffindor as a do over or something but too complicated. It's okay thank you for your opinions and I'm glad you think so. Thank you.  
** Accio: **Glad to know that and I'm sorry that I do not have an updating schedule. Thank you.**


	4. He Was Back Home Again

Harry Potter and all its characters and storylines belong to J.K. Rowling.

This is the chapter where Draco and the others get sorted. Praying to Merlin that I executed this okay. Here goes nothing.

* * *

 **Chapter Four - "He Was Back Home Again."**

Draco had forgotten how intimidating and strict Professor McGonagall could be. As she'd aged, she hadn't lost her firm and no-nonsense atmosphere that hung around her form like a second layer of skin. She could silence any troublemaker with a mere glance from her eyes. But the last time Draco had seen McGonagall, at the Hogwarts funeral to honor those who'd given their lives in the war when he was still seventeen, she had not been her usual imposing and neat self. Those eyes had not been threatening in the least; they showed McGonagall's age, and how tired and defeated the witch had felt at what might've been the lowest point of her life. Her hair had almost always been grey or greying in the time Draco had known her, but suddenly she seemed _older_ because of its color. It had been falling out of its bun, hanging in straggly waves around her suddenly ancient face. Her robes had been black, proper attire for a funeral, but they were the only neat things about her. She looked exhausted and sad, an appropriate expression for the occasion.

But ten years ago, she was still a splendid sight; tall, black-haired, dressed in robes so green they rivaled Potter's emerald eyes. The worry and pain that had weighed down her shoulders had not arrived yet. Her face was set into a stern expression, and though it was still marked with wrinkles, it only made her seem more wise and imposing, instead of old. She seemed to impress upon the first years that there would be no messing around when she was in the vicinity.

"The firs' years, Professor McGonagall," said Hagrid respectfully, dipping his head slightly as if he was thinking of bowing.

"Thank you, Hagrid," the witch replied. Her voice was smooth and firm, filled with confidence. Last time, it had cracked with grief as she'd delivered her speech to attending wizards and witches and accepted her role as Headmistress of Hogwarts with teary eyes. "I will take them from here."

She pulled the front door open wide, bustling off across the flagged stone floor and hardly allowing the awed first-years to take in the vastness of the entrance hall. The amazed voices of the new students blended into the loud talking from the Great Hall with the rest of the students, and the voices echoed off the walls and floated up to the higher floors of the castle.

"Welcome to Hogwarts," McGonagall said grandly as soon as she'd ushered the new pupils into a small chamber off to the side of the Great Hall. "The start-of-term banquet will begin shortly, but before you take your seats in the Great Hall, you will be sorted into your houses." She proceeded to speak of the Sorting and the four houses, while the listening children tittered nervously.

 _Sorting._ It was very close now. Draco was now filled with a feeling of dread at the thought. Would he get sorted into Slytherin again? If so, then what would he do? Would that defeat the whole purpose of a second chance? Was he supposed to get sorted into a different house so he could change the course of the future?

He didn't know what he was supposed to do, and he was also unsure how to feel about the Sorting. On the one hand, Slytherin was home. Despite its bad reputation, he loved his house. He was and would always be a Slytherin. But on the other hand, if this was a second chance to change things, than shouldn't he be in a different house? Perhaps Gryffindor was the house he was supposed to end up in this time, although he shuddered at the thought of wearing a scarlet-and-gold tie. Or perhaps he'd end up in Ravenclaw, which was only slightly better than the prospect of being a Gryffindor – at least Ravenclaws were smart and clever and less impulsive.

 _Let the Sorting Hat decide,_ Draco thought to himself, but at the same time he was picking apart his thoughts and memories and working at building a mental barrier around the things he didn't want the hat to see or know.

"The Sorting Ceremony will take place in a few minutes in front of the rest of the school," McGonagall was finishing. She made to sweep out of the room, but before executing the move, she continued, "I suggest you all smarten yourselves up as much as you can while you are waiting."

Her eyes skimmed over the assembled children, pausing every now and then on a few students who seemed unsatisfactory; Longbottom, with his cloak fastened under his left ear, Crabbe, who's mouth was covered in crumbs, and Weasley, who still had a smudge on his nose. From the corner of his eye, Draco saw Potter frantically run a hand through his hair, perhaps trying to flatten it.

"I shall return when we are ready for you," the professor said. "Please wait quietly." At last she swept from the chamber, closing the door behind her. Within seconds of her disappearance, the first-years around Draco erupted into nervous chatter.

He hated to realize it, but Draco was actually feeling nervous now about the Sorting Ceremony. His indifference had evaporated. He wasn't nervous about the prospect of getting up in front of the school and trying on a hat. No. This was something very important; it would determine his future in this second chance he'd received somehow.

 _Maybe this is still a dream, and I'll wake up in my apartment in New York and have a good laugh about worrying about unimportant things like Sorting Ceremonies and being eleven._

He was actually missing his miserable life as a twenty-one-year-old.

-.0

"When I call your name, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted," McGonagall announced. The Great Hall was hushed now; the only sound was the light crackling of candles and the shifting of students and teachers in their seats. Above everybody's heads, the ceiling was scattered with stars, silver beings that glimmered much like the ghosts that sat among the students at the House tables.

"Abbott, Hannah!"

And so the Sorting began with a blond girl fumbling forward onto the stool. It wasn't hard to believe that it was Hannah Abbott who married Neville Longbottom, with the way she blushed and stumbled around. Honestly, the two seemed meant to be.

As other first years were sorted, Draco took pleasure in whispering the name of the student's houses in Weasley's and Potter's ears right before the Sorting Hat confirmed, enjoying the looks of surprise that passed over their faces when he was correct. A Malfoy was never wrong, after all.

"Granger, Hermione!"

Granger was now heading up to try on the hat, practically tripping over herself in her haste and almost rivaling Hannah Abbott in clumsiness.

"…Gryffindor," Draco whispered to Potter and Weasley, and heard the redhead grown in despair at his prediction.

"Ugh, I don't want her in my house…"

Draco almost expected the hat to change things up and sort Granger into Ravenclaw instead, but it was predictable as ever. "GRYFFINDOR!"

Ron groaned again. Then Longbottom was sorted into Gryffindor as well, and "MacDougal, Morag," was called up. There was a slight delay when Longbottom ran off to the Gryffindor table with the hat still on his head. The hall laughed at the flustered expression on the new Gryffindor's face and the equally embarrassed expression of Morag.

And then McGonagall was saying, "Malfoy, Draco," and feeling uncomfortably warm and nervous, Draco stepped cautiously up to the stool. He normally would've swaggered forward, confident in being sorted into Slytherin – he could see the Slytherin house straightening in its seats when its students heard his name called, their hands raised, ready to clap for him when the hat touched his head and sorted him without a second thought –

He sat on the stool. McGonagall raised the hat to his head.

The expected announcement came. "SLY – " the hat began.

 _WAIT!_ Draco thought at the same time, his mind interrupting the hat's voice. The Sorting Hat cut off mid-word, causing the Hall to titter nervously in surprise. Draco could imagine the Slytherin table lowering its hands, shocked that the Malfoy heir hadn't immediately been put into their house.

 _Hmm,_ the Sorting Hat's voice said in Draco's mind, causing the blonde to jump. He'd never experienced this before. Last time, his contact with the hat had been short and brief. _You're not like you're supposed to have been. You were supposed to be an easy one._

 _I know I was easy,_ Draco thought, unable to keep an annoyed tone out of his voice. _You sorted me straight into Slytherin without a second thought._

It was strange, how normal it was to reveal to the Sorting Hat that Draco wasn't from this time, that he was from the future. He knew now why the hat was pretty accurate when sorting students into the house; it had an aura that seemed to coax secrets from the mind, that seemed to assure trust.

 _I'm a hat,_ the Sorting Hat seemed to say without speaking or thinking or telepathically communicating or whatever this was. _It's not like I can go about gossiping about your secrets._

 _You are a true Slytherin,_ the Sorting Hat said to Draco. _But not evil. You are smart, but you are not completely clever. You might be a good Ravenclaw. That's the house of knowledge. I see that you are from the future, and I sense that in this house you could learn even more than you already know. But you are not wise, and you feel that Ravenclaw is second best to Slytherin. Perhaps Ravenclaw would teach you more about magic, but it will not teach you more about friendship and loyalty. So you might be Gryffindor. You can be impulsive, but you are not brave._

Now there was a pause. Draco could hear the hall muttering to itself, waiting with anticipation for the name of the house the Malfoy heir would be sorted into, curious as to why he hadn't gone straight to Slytherin.

 _You are from the future,_ the hat said again. _I will not sort you into Slytherin for this reason. I think a change would be good, don't you?_ Without waiting for an answer, it continued. _Ravenclaw would be a good path, but I have given my doubts of placing you in the house of wisdom, and I sense that it would not be beneficial to separate you from Harry Potter and Ron Weasley, who you know will be sorted into Gryffindor. I cannot change this fact. They are not like you. They are not from the future, so their minds and their beings are the same. Their pasts will not be altered from the past that you are originally from; but you will change what they experience and what they know._

Finally, the hat spoke out loud, speaking words that Draco knew were inevitable, but at the same time he wished were different.

"Better be…GRYFFINDOR!"

This time the hat's voice echoed not in Draco's mind, but in the Great Hall. The noise of this announcement was loud to begin with, but was made even louder by the fact that the hall was now silent. All murmuring had ceased. Everyone seemed to be shocked.

Draco loved attention perhaps a bit more than the average person and had, in his career at Hogwarts, a tendency to brag and flaunt himself to gain extra notice. But this was ridiculous. He had never imagined that he'd have every single eye in the hall on him (well, excluding the Sorting Hat, but it/he/she/whatever it was didn't have eyes). School-wide attention was Potter's thing, and it should always be Potter's thing, even if Draco had wanted it to be his thing when he was younger.

Besides, why was everyone so shocked and reacting like this? It was as if he'd just peeled off his skin and revealed that he was, in fact, Voldemort in disguise, back to kill Harry Potter and everyone else. Or, as a better, more relatable comparison in this situation, it was like Voldemort had just been sorted into Hufflepuff.

Underneath the stares of the entire Hogwarts population, Draco removed the hat from his blonde head, plopped it back onto the stool, gave a single nod at Professor McGonagall, his new Head of House, and then swept from the front of the Hall over to a seat between Granger and Longbottom.

The hall was still painfully silent, and Draco sent telepathic pleas – er, _demands_ , because Malfoys didn't plead – to McGonagall to hurry up and read the next name. The quiet was painfully awkward and he was resisting an urge to pick up his wand and enchant all the forks in the Great Hall to gouge everyone's eyes out so that people would stop looking at him.

It occurred to him that nobody had clapped for him either, and felt a bit put out by this fact.

A few heartbeats of silence later, Granger, who didn't know anything about the Malfoy family and therefore had _absolutely no excuse to be staring at him like everyone else,_ raised her hands and began to applaud, something that caught him off guard. And then Longbottom was also clapping, along with Seamus Finnegan, and then Potter joined in, and well, _oh look, Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, is clapping, so then naturally I must to._

The applause died down eventually, though it seemed to be confused, if clapping could have an emotion, and then things continued as if nothing had just happened and Draco was glad to get that out of the way.

 _Mental note,_ he thought. _Attention is good but only in small doses._

He focused back on the Sorting, if only for politeness and not genuine interest in what was happening. After him was someone named "Moon," a student who must've been so bland and boring in Draco's original timeline that he didn't remember him at all, and then "Nott, Theodore" and "Parkinson, Pansy" went up. As he expected, both of his old friends were immediately sorted into Slytherin. He felt a strange pang as he watched Pansy remove the hat and head over to the clapping and cheering snake table. She seated herself next to Theodore and Crabbe, and then, as if sensing Draco's gaze on her, she caught his eye.

He froze, unsure of what she was thinking and feeling about him right at that moment. But the eye contact lasted hardly a second. As "Patil, Padma," was called up, Pansy looked away and right past Draco as if she hadn't seen him after all, even though he knew she definitely had.

It was a very Slytherin thing to do, and even though Draco felt bitter about being ignored by her, he realized that he shouldn't have expected anything less.

"RAVENCLAW!"

Padma Patil was walking off to the now cheering table with a small smile on her face, shooting her sister a reassuring look as Parvati Patil now went up to be sorted.

"GRYFFINDOR!" came the expected announcement from the Sorting Hat, and then the second Patil twin was heading to the table Draco was sitting at with a happy expression on her face.

After "Perks, Sally-Anne" came the student with the name that many students seemed to have been looking forward to all night.

Removing the hat from the previous girl's head, McGonagall consulted her scroll and said loudly, "Potter, Harry!"

Immediately cheering from the previous Sorting quieted and whispers broke out across the halls like muted wind.

"Potter, did she say?"

"The Harry Potter?"

As the Sorting Hat dropped over the Boy-Who-Lived eye's, Draco couldn't help but snort at the commotion Potter's presence had caused. Many of the room's occupants, including several of the teachers, were now shifting in their seats, craning their necks to get a better look at the boy on the stool. An utterly useless move, if you asked Draco, because currently there were no distinguishable features of Potter because the Sorting Hat was covering his face. Potter's hands were not exactly recognizable.

"That's Harry Potter alright," one of the Weasley twins was saying to a friend – Lee Jordan, if Draco remembered correctly. "We saw him on the train."

"I don't see what all the commotion is about," Draco mentioned in passing to Granger, Longbottom, and Seamus Finnegan. He said this mostly to see the other kids' reactions. Naturally, all three – and even the Head Boy Weasley and the twins – stared at Draco as if he were mad.

"You're joking, right?" Finnegan said, his eyes wide.

The Weasley twins and Granger looked like they were about to add their own opinions in, but the Head Boy chose that moment to swoop in like an overly strict and fussy eagle more intent on keeping its prey quiet than eating it. Or perhaps like McGonagall when an exam was taking place.

"Shh, now's not the time to talk."

"Better be "GRYFFINDOR!" shouted the hat after much consideration and thinking on its part. With a sort of relieved smile, Potter shakily headed in the direction of the now-cheering Gryffindor table. Potter's reception was much better than Draco's had been - while the hall had been deathly silent when Draco had been sorted, they were now quite the opposite. The Gryffindor's looked the most triumphant, cheering and whistling and clapping (the Weasley twins took up the chant of, "We got Potter!" and the Head Boy even leapt from his seat to shake Potter's hand). Even the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff tables were clapping vigorously, although Draco's old house looked a bit less than pleased.

Taking a seat between Longbottom and Draco, Potter now fixed his gaze on the High Table, examining the teachers. Draco mimicked his movements, letting his eyes roam over the familiar but completely different faces of his teachers. There was Professor Trelawney, looking nervously about through her too-large glasses and resembling an owl that was confused about where it was supposed to deliver its mail. Then there was Sprout, looking much jollier than she'd been in Draco's later years at Hogwarts, watching the Sorting with a bright twinkle in her eye and cheering especially loudly whenever the hat announced a new Hufflepuff. Then Flitwick, who was just as eager as Sprout, and Dumbledore.

It was strange, seeing the old Headmaster alive and well. Last time Draco had encountered him, it had been on the top of the Astronomy Tower. The great wizard had been considerably weakened and his mind seemed to not be as sharp as it usually was, but behind those half-moon glasses, Dumbledore's blue eyes had still sparkled with clarity even if he hadn't seemed to be himself. Draco could still remember that night with an odd clearness, much like a very vivid dream. He could remember the calm and almost placid look which Dumbledore had fixed him with even as he stood with his wand at the ready, willing the Killing Curse to fly from his mouth. But the magic had gotten stuck in his throat, just as unwilling to be uttered as Draco had been to utter them.

Quickly flicking his eyes past the Headmaster, who seemingly had no idea of his death or the fact that the man that murdered him was sitting very nearby, Draco moved on, past Snape who he didn't yet want to think about, to a certain pale and nervous looking professor wearing a purple turban.

After Potter had faced down Voldemort in their first year (this fact was no secret – it had been all over the school within hours of the event), it had been well-known that Professor Quirrel wasn't anything he'd seemed to be. While most students didn't know the exact details of Quirrel's alliance or association with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, they knew that he had been working with the evil wizard. Very few students who weren't the Golden Trio knew that Voldemort had spent most of the year living in the back of Quirrel's head, hidden by a turban that smelled strongly of garlic, something that Draco would've found hilarious if it wasn't disturbing.

 _Telling everyone about Quirrel's alliance with Voldemort and condition might be a good idea,_ Draco thought. _But doesn't that ruin the events of first year? How can I tell everyone the truth? Won't it mess all of time up?_

 _Time is already not following its original course, though._

Blinking away from the purple turban, Draco became aware that the youngest Weasley male was now sitting with them at the Gryffindor table. He had a delighted and slightly relieved look on his face.

"Well done, Ron, excellent," the Head Boy said pompously.

"Zabini, Blaise!" McGonagall called. Draco knew that his old friend was the last student in their year. It took hardly ten seconds before the Sorting Hat announced, "SLYTHERIN!" and the newly sorted wizard stepped off briskly to the now-cheering table.

Almost out of habit, Draco found himself raising his hands to cheer along with them, before realizing that he was, in fact, a Gryffindor in this time and clapping for a Slytherin might come off as suspicious – house rivalries were strong, especially among the lions and snakes.

Now the Headmaster was on his feet. "Welcome," he bade everyone. "Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are. Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak! Thank you!"

With that, he seated himself again to the applause of the students and teachers.

It was amazing, Draco reflected, how silly Dumbledore could be. He also reflected that it was better this way, before all the drama with Voldemort and the darkening of the magical world.

It was surreal, sitting in the Great Hall again, a student once more at Hogwarts. Given, a twenty-one-year-old man who'd already gone through wizarding education and was now stuck in his eleven-year-old body, but that was almost the same, wasn't it? Everything was so similar to the way he remembered it; the atmosphere of the Great Hall, the students all one black mass, moving and tittering, never still, and the tables laden with sparkling gold and silver dishes, twinkling in the light from the never-dying candles overhead. Above the candles, the roof was non-existent to the eye. A beautiful array of stars were scattered across the night sky, accompanied by clouds lit pale pink by some unseeable source and the moon, which gleamed like an all-knowing eye.

If Draco closed his eyes and tuned out the voices of the Gryffindors sitting around him, he could almost imagine that he was sitting at the Slytherin table, and none of this insane crazy time traveling had taken place.

It was almost like he was back home again.

* * *

A/N: As always thank you for all the kind reviews, follows, and favorites. They all mean a lot.

Here's to hoping that readers found the Sorting Ceremony realistic. I do think that Draco is truly a Slytherin, so I tried to have a motive for why he got sorted into Gryffindor, not just because. So I hope that was realistic and if anyone has any comments or criticisms on that let me know and maybe try to address whatever in later chapters if this feels unrealistic.

Not sure when I'll be able to get the next chapter out, it's kinda partially written but I'm not very satisfied with it yet so we'll see. If you have any questions or anything tell me I'll try to answer. Sorry if anything's confusing.

 **MagicornIs1: Thanks for the review and hope you liked this chapter.**

 **rhythmsbluegirl: Thank you. Glad that you thought Draco was realistically written, I'm trying not to make it that way and hopefully his character didn't flip in this chapter. Thanks for the review.**

 **Guest: Thank you. Glad that you thought Draco is still in character, I'm guessing more tactful is a good thing? Hopefully his character didn't flip in this chapter, I'll try to keep it that way. Also hopefully I'll be able to write a realistic relationship between Hermione and Draco. Thanks for the review.**

 **Acute-angle-101: Glad you're liking the story! That means a lot. Sorry about not having regular update schedule, with everyday life it's hard to know when there's a chance to write. Hope that the sorting was not a disappointment. Thanks for the review.**

 **ImpossibleNightmare: Thank you, glad you think so. Hope you liked the sorting, sorry about not having an updating schedule and thank you for reviewing.**

 **Eralc N. Denswot: Thank you sorry about not having an updating schedule but hope you liked this chapter. Thanks for reviewing.**


	5. Never Seemed Farther Away

Hello I'm back. Sorry for taking forever for updating. This chapter I've rewritten at least three times, I've debated on so many points in this chapter but finally I think I've gotten to a point where I like it enough. Sorry that it took so long and if it's not up to par hopefully it's still enjoyable to read. It might seem like more of a filler chapter.

Thanks for your patience, I do not own Harry Potter or any of the characters so don't give me credit.

* * *

 **Chapter Five: "Never Seemed Farther Away."**

Now the Great Hall had lost its focus on the Head Table; students now fixed their eyes eagerly on their plates as the golden dishes filled with scrumptious edibles. Even Draco, who was beyond used to this magic at this point, couldn't help but be amazed at the sheer amount of food that the table now held. Maybe it was because, living alone in New York from paycheck to paycheck, he'd never had enough food to consider himself completely full. Now, there was more than enough food to go around, and he didn't have to sacrifice money for running water or electricity in order to buy a salad at the local twenty-four-seven corner store.

Draco hastily helped himself to a plateful of food, listening idly to some of the conversations going on around him; Granger loudly discussing classes and textbooks with a lost-looking Longbottom by her side, Potter asking the elder Weasley Head Boy about Snape – who Draco still refused to look at – the youngest Weasley boy scarfing down his food, and the other first-years talking about their heritage.

Nobody seemed to be paying any mind to Draco, until Finnegan looked up to the blonde and said in his Irish lilt, "Who would've expected the Malfoy heir to make it into Gryffindor?"

This seemed to be an invitation for others to add their own opinion and state their surprise.

"Yeah, we thought you'd all be in Slytherin for sure," Lavender Brown added.

The Gryffindor Patil twin nodded earnestly. "Haven't all the Malfoys been Slytherins up to you? Why didn't you get sorted into that house?"

Oh Merlin. Now they were all looking at him. Finnegan, Dean Thomas, Longbottom, Brown, Patil, Granger, Potter, the two Weasleys. Don't get Draco wrong – he normally adored attention. He used to thrive on it. Now a days, much of the looks he got were impolite and rude, filled with hate for what he'd done. He deserved those looks of hate though. After everything he'd done, who he'd sided with…he should've gotten much more punishment than he'd actually received.

But that was beside the point. Normally he loved attention. But he preferred it when he actually had some semblance of an idea as to what he wanted to say, something biting but smart. He currently had nothing that met these criteria.

"The Sorting Hat has its reasons," he said offhandedly.

"Well, I'm certainly glad you got Sorted into Gryffindor," Granger said bossily, her eyes burning like fire, if fire could be brown. "Honestly, I thought you'd get into Ravenclaw, you're certainly clever enough."

"Thanks?" he replied.

"Were your parents really in league with You-Know-Who?" Brown now blurted out. This question seemed to frighten a lot of the first years, except Thomas and Potter, who, Draco reasoned, had come from Muggle households and didn't know a lot about the wizarding world.

"No, they weren't," Draco snapped. "Not now."

"Were they, then, at one point?" the younger Weasley elaborated. His face was a mixture of curiosity and suspicion.

" _I_ thought all the wizards working with You-Know-Who had all been arrested by the ministry," Granger said. "Of course, I suppose there's always a few that get away, but surely all the most dangerous ones must've been arrested? That's what it said in all the books I've read."

Before Draco could say something, which he didn't plan on doing, Nearly Headless Nick spoke up, as if sensing the blonde's discomfort. "My, that food does look good."

Now attention was on the ghost, and Draco relaxed a bit. It was amazing how easily children could be distracted, like puppies, bouncing from one activity to another – watching a butterfly one instant, chasing their tail the next…and their naïve attitudes reminded Draco painfully of their unawareness of what was to come, what they would face in the next years…Brown, who died at age seventeen, Patil, who would lose her friend, Thomas, who was one of the Muggleborns captured and brought to Malfoy Manor after being on the run…

Looking around at the surrounding tables, Draco could see many faces that did not know of their fates, the close calls with death, assuming they survived. It was really amazing, how much everything could change, within the next decade, within the next seven years, within the next moment…

 _Why was I given a second chance?_ he thought, not for the first time. _How do I not mess up the future?_ Am _I supposed to mess up the future?_

His eyes fixed on Quirrell, who's lower lip was trembling as he spoke with a nervous smile to one of the teachers at the Head Table. Quirrell had been, although Draco hated to admit it, rather clever – he'd managed to go almost an entire year with the Dark Lord hidden in the back of his head under everyone's nose. Surely, if there was any chance in stopping Voldemort's rise, it had to start with him?

But was that truly the correct move? What if that ruined everything in the future? What if Voldemort _was_ supposed to rise in the end, and bring about the deaths and tragedy like he'd done in Draco's original timeline?

 _No. Surely I'm supposed to stop him from rising. Not only will it save many lives, but it will earn my family fame and glory, and then I'll finally have my childhood wish - I'll be far more heroic than Saint Potter ever dreamed of being. Surely it's a win-win situation for me._ But for once, as Slytherin as his thinking process was, Draco couldn't convince himself of a course of action. Whoever, or whatever, had blessed him (cursed him?) with a second chance was not making things easy for him.

-.0

Draco and the other Gryffindor first years fell in behind Percy as the welcoming feast came to a close. He was glad to be away from the noise of the Great Hall, away from the site of so many dead faces (oh, seeing Crabbe and Goyle – really all his Slytherin friends again – had been awful), away from Quirrell and the hiding Voldemort. He was tired, and his brain hurt from trying to come up with a solution of any sort. The lights of the floating candles above the tables seemed to have branded themselves in his retina.

It was strange to recall that less than twenty-four hours ago…ten years from now…he'd been living a fairly normal life. As normal a life as a young wizard living in Muggle America could, at least, and after a wizarding war no less. At least then he could explain _why_ he was living like he was in the future, whereas now, he had no idea how or why any of this had happened.

Other then a brief encounter with the school Poltergeist, Peeves, whom Draco had definitely not missed, the small group of first years reached the portrait of the Fat Lady, who sat and regarded them as anyone might regard something they'd never seen before.

Now Draco's interest was peaking. It had always been a goal of his to someday get the password to Gryffindor Tower and break in. Given, he'd never been sure _what_ exactly he'd do once he'd get there (surely he'd be in a lot of trouble for doin so) but he figured that the triumph of having puzzled out a way into enemy territory would be worth whatever happened afterwards.

"Password?" the Fat Lady asked, the pink silk of her dress rustling every so slightly with movement as she shifted in her portrait.

With no hesitance, the Head Boy said, "Caput Draconis," and then the portrait was swinging open and there was a sudden rush to get into the common room.

Draco repeated the password to himself – it wouldn't be too difficult to remember, especially as it contained his own name, just with an added 'nis' – but promptly forgot himself as, for the first time in his life, he entered the Gryffindor common room.

He immediately was swamped with an odd mixture of nostalgia and jealousy. He now was really missing the dungeon common room for the Slytherins, because he was much more comfortable there and he knew his way around. But at the same time, the Gryffindor common room was definitely much warmer. And much cozier, which Draco didn't like. He was much more used to furniture that appeared to be comfortable but was actually just wood with "cushioning" stuffed with air that deflated the moment you sat down on it. That was the way of the elite life he'd known – the appearance of comfort without any at all.

"Alright, girls' dormitories are up that way, and boys' are in the other direction," the Head Boy said after some of the first years' excited chatter died down and he could make himself heard again. He made gestures to go along with what he was saying, and then the band broke up, heading towards their respective dormitories.

It had been a long day, and it was clear that the other first years were just as exhausted as Draco was. With only a few words exchanged between them (Draco really didn't say anything. He was too busy thinking about the days' events and wondering what he was supposed to do now), the boys quickly changed and tucked themselves into bed.

Draco faced the window in the dormitory. The fact that he could see the night sky sprinkled with stars unsettled him a bit, almost more than the fact that he was currently sleeping in a bed decked out with red and gold Gryffindor colors. He was used to seeing the lake. In fact, he preferred seeing the lake. He liked watching the calm stillness of the water, a painting of greens and blues, and he liked the way the silt at the bottom of the lake was shifted around by unseen currents, moving around the underwater world in an abstract dance that nobody could predict. Sometimes fish or some other more bizarre creature would drift across the window, and every now and then what might've been a part of the Giant Squid would make an appearance.

There was nothing wrong with the night sky he was looking at now. It just wasn't the lake. And it was another reminder that he was a Slytherin in Gryffindor clothing and ten years too old.

He remained awake much longer than his dorm mates. Darkness was a silent friend, blanketing the world in soft velvet. Stars glinted like faraway Patronuses, reminding him that even in the darkness there was light. If only he could find a way to reach it.

Thinking was futile. He might as well turn in.

 _Maybe tomorrow, I'll wake up back in New York,_ he dared to hope. It was his last conscious thought. Draco hadn't expected to drift into sleep so quickly, thinking he'd be tormented by confusion and problems. But drowsiness claimed him, sleep sneaking up on him like a lion stalking its prey, hidden in long grass, only making itself known when it was too late; it was useless to attempt escape.

It was certainly a night for dreaming. Never in his years at Hogwarts did Draco have what he would deem a significant dream, or one that he felt had meaning. In his first few years they were rather petty, shallow dreams; getting a new broom, getting new robes, getting whatever he wanted, making fun of Potter, being top of the class and spiting Granger, putting Weasley in his place, et cetera. In later years he'd been plagued by nightmares, twisted faces and jeering laughter, his parents' bodies, still and unmoving, stricken by some untraceable force of death. Green light, high cold laughter, the writhing form of Charity Burbage as a huge snake slithered from the mouth of the Dark Mark, promising death.

Thank Merlin none of that showed up.

Strangely, he dreamed of the Muggle fairy tale, Sleeping Beauty. He was dressed in what he supposed was a dress of some sort, which he didn't like very much. He was back at the bar he'd visited in New York, and there was Wendy, just as he remembered her, except wearing a pair of horns on her head. She told him that he would fall into sleep for a long time and would only be woken by love, and when he asked how long she told him that he'd had too much to drink. Then she was gone. He took a sip of the drink she had mixed for him and fell into a sleep. Hardly more than a heartbeat later, he was waking up in his dream once again, kissed by his true love, and his eyes widened exponentially when he spotted a dream-version of Hermione Granger, suited nicely in a princely outfit.

He woke up horrified, with the only thought of, _why is_ she _the prince?_

-.0

Draco was not at all surprised to see his eagle owl soar into the Great Hall the next morning (he was also not surprised when he woke up still in the Gryffindor dormitory and not in his apartment). A thick white envelop was clutched in the owl's talons. With a grace that humans couldn't match, the bird swooped down, released his packet into the expectant hands below, and then was gone within the same wingbeat - elegantly and efficiently, as anything associated with the Malfoy's should be.

"What did you get?"

Well, almost everything associated with the Malfoy's was elegant and efficient. Waiting for Potter and Weasley to get ready that morning had taught Draco that his new acquaintances were anything but. The bespectacled boy was eyeing the newly delivered envelope curiously as he ate his toast, seated across the table from Draco, next to Weasley. The redhead was busily eating eggs in a way that would've given Narcissa a minor heart attack and was causing Brown and Patil to wrinkle their noses disgustedly and giggle.

"A letter of congratulations," Draco replied snidely. He lifted up the envelope gingerly, aware that some of the other first years around him were also interested in what he'd received. He had been one of the few in the hall to get any sort of mail that morning. Picking up the remains of his bagel, Draco beat a hasty retreat and thanked Merlin that Malfoy's didn't yell. That was the only reason, he was sure, that he'd been spared a Howler and public humiliation on the very first day.

His first class, he knew, based on the schedule that McGonagall ( _his new Head of House, oh that was bizarre)_ had given him, was Charms. So he headed in the direction of Flitwick's, and once he found a place where he could stop and open the letter, he did so.

He was not at all surprised to see his mother's beautiful loopy handwriting filling the creamy sheets of paper. He was, however, disappointed to know that it had likely been the words of his father that she'd been writing. At least, he hoped so. Draco was used to Lucius's disappointment. But his mother was a different story. Disappointing her was like finally buying the car you'd been saving money up for, only to crash it within the first few weeks of owning it (he'd actually done that, so he knew what he was talking about, like Malfoys always did).

Draco,

We've received the news of your mis-Sorting from your godfather. This was very unexpected, as nobody in the family has been anything but Slytherin for generations, so you must excuse your father and I. Draco, your father is very angry. I've tried to reason with him, but he's saying it's an injustice and humiliation to his name. He's gone off to the school board to have a long talk with them about eliminating the process of Sorting entirely. If you could, we'd like it very much if you could speak with Professor Dumbledore and see if he has any ability to change your House. It's for the better.

I love you,

Mother

He'd expected nothing different than the contents in the letter. Even so, he had to swallow down a lump in his throat. As was always the trend in his mother's letter, they were formal and often gave nothing away, but he could always detect a glimmer of his mother's love in her words; these were less veiled. Eleven was a time when the biggest threat was his father and passing the yearly exams, before he had to worry constantly that he or his family might be killed, before he had to worry about Potter or Granger or Weasley or really anybody else finding out about his Vanishing Cabinet scheme. Before death became an everyday thing.

He realized that his eyes were wet, though he wasn't sure why, and he quickly dried them. Malfoy's didn't _cry._ Crying was a foreign term. Draco folded the letter neatly and set off at a brisk pace again, heading once more for the Charms room.

-.0

"Draco."

The first years were gathered outside of the Potions classroom, a mixture of red and gold and green and silver. Enemies and friends. The Gryffindors had just come from their first Charms class, and having their first taste of magic, were abuzz with excitement and delight for what the next class might hold for them.

Flitwick's class had been mostly fundamentals – wand technique, the important of correct pronunciation and stressing the correct syllables, charm uses, famous charmers, and what careers majoring in Charms might lead you to. Then they'd gotten to try a very simple and basic spell, of which a majority of the class failed. But nonetheless, no one was discouraged. The Slytherins, if memory served Draco correctly, had just attended their first Transfiguration class. None of the green-tied students were looking particularly pleased, though.

It was Blaise Zabini who had spoken Draco's name. The Slytherin stood with Pansy, Crabbe, Goyle, and Daphne in a tightly knit clump. It was weird to see his usual group without him. He often thought himself the leader and linchpin of the group (really of Slytherin's house in general) – without them, they didn't know what to do, or where to go, or what to say, and without him, they would fall apart.

So it was strangely upsetting to see that they looked perfectly capable of managing themselves without him gracing them with his presence.

"Blaise," Draco returned. The last time he had spoken to the other had been at Blaise and Pansy's engagement party, when the former had come up to the Malfoy and said in a firm and emotionless voice that Draco would _not_ be invited to the wedding. Draco hadn't minded so much at the time. He hated weddings to begin with, and Blaise was still recovering from the war. He'd assumed that his friend had just needed some time just with his fiancé, and that he'd get through the phase and they'd become good friends again.

It was perhaps two or three months after the wedding that Draco realized Blaise was _never_ going to voluntarily speak or meet up with him again, and that their friendship, worn thin and yellow like century-old parchment, had crumbled into dust, the beautifully scripted ink words lost forever to time.

Pansy had contacted him once after that, once he'd moved to New York, and coldly told him to call her Mrs. Zabini when he addressed her as Pansy before hanging up in what seemed to be offense or anger. Daphne had been the last of his school friends to have been in contact with him, first to arrange a marriage with her younger sister Astoria, then to plan the wedding, and then to tell him that Astoria had eloped with a Muggle named Ikor Ryterski and was no longer a member of the Greengrass family. She never contacted him again – a week later, Draco received a Daily Prophet that reported her mysterious disappearance, but her death was never confirmed.

But now – in the past, before all of this - the group of Slytherins moved. Not very much, but enough that Draco could see that they were making room for him. A place in their ranks.

It wasn't much, but Draco's heart soared. So it didn't matter to them, then, that he'd been sorted into Gryffindor! He was still one of them, still their friend.

The dungeon door flew open, all on its own (or by magic, but it sounds creepier this way).

Now was the time to see if Snape would accept Draco, as the Slytherins around him seemed to have.

-.0

At the front of the classroom, Snape shuffled a sheaf of parchment, carefully and deliberately. Draco's godfather had a tendency for slowing down his movements to an almost ridiculous speed, but in a slightly paranoid state of mind, Draco was convinced that his godfather was going even slower than normal to make Draco (oh, and probably the rest of the class, but Draco was clearly the more important student here and therefore the main subject of whatever Snape's intentions were) feel very uncomfortable.

Then Snape spoke. Draco had heard him earlier in this timeline, at the manor with his parents, but this situation was completely different than the one from before. For one, he was a Gryffindor. His parents were not here. And this was a school setting. He waited with bated breath as the professor began calling role in a low and extremely emotionless voice that Lucius wished Draco also possessed.

"Granger, Hermione," said Snape, speaking the name as if it were something extremely unpleasant.

"Present, Professor," Granger said. She was sitting at the desk to his right – her choice of seating had caused some of the Slytherins to hiss at her unpleasantly, but she seemed unaffected. She caught him looking at her, gave him a look, and then focused her attention on Daphne, who was sharing his desk.

"Urgh, the Mudblood's looking at you, Daphne," smirked Blaise from behind Draco.

"Shh, don't speak when the Professor's calling role," Daphne hissed back at him, but she shot a sideways look at Granger and gave her a rude look. The other girl quickly turned away, looking angry at Daphne and also for not paying attention to a teacher.

Draco swallowed, feeling unsettled. He had the distinct feeling that his friends were expecting him to join in with their making-fun of other students, something that had always never failed to amuse Draco in original time. They'd been fairly silent walking into the classroom, and he'd fooled himself into thinking that maybe, without his influence, they might keep quiet about the others, but clearly he hadn't been the cause of their attitudes. The moment they'd taken their seats until the moment Snape appeared at the door, they had spoken only cruelly of others.

It was not that he was against it. Bullying was something Draco had done quite often. It was something he'd done consciously and, though it was horrible to admit it, something he'd grown fond of. It was a position of power. Something Draco had always wanted more than anything. But unlike his younger self, he no longer relished in making others feel bad. he didn't mind calling others names or using the term Mudblood or other words like that as long as it was only in his head, where nobody could hear (ignoring Legilimency) and be affected. This was something that he wouldn't have understood ten years ago at age eleven. But after the war, _he'd_ been on the receiving end of cruel words - _Death Eater, Dark Lord's servant, traitor, no good Malfoy..._ Now he knew that words were much more than just sounds - they held much more meaning than he'd ever known. Sometimes they had more impact than a curse.

And maybe it was also his real, true age speaking, or his experiences, but eleven-year-olds bullying other eleven-year-olds seemed...not wrong, exactly, because this was always going to happen, but off. His Slytherin friends, for the most part, were only reiterating the beliefs of their parents had instilled in them. But even so, the likelihood that they were unaware about the meanings of what they were saying was slim to none.

Snape continued with role. "Malfoy, Draco."

"Present," Draco muttered.

There was silence in the classroom as it seemed Snape had failed to call out the next student on the role.

"Is Malfoy, Draco not here?" asked Snape in a lazy drawl.

"I said present," Draco spoke louder.

"Oh really?" asked his godfather, not bothering to look up. "I'm afraid I did not hear you. If you're going to bother to speak, do so clearly."

Now he went on, leaving Draco to feel the bitter taste of anger on his tongue as the Slytherins around him murmured defensively and assuring Draco that he'd spoken loud enough and Snape had simply misheard or figured another student was speaking out of turn.

 _No, he ignored me because I'm a Gryffindor, and I suppose that this overrides the fact that I'm a Malfoy,_ he thought, and fell to silently wondering his friends for accepting him despite their different houses, something that, in original time, he certainly would not have done for them. He was very surprised, in fact, that they'd accepted him at all instead of making him a subject of their scrutiny as well. He found himself appreciating the flexibility of eleven-year-olds. The future versions of his friends were much less forgiving.

"You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potionmaking," Professor Snape began once he'd finished role call. His voice was low and quiet. Eerie, like the sound of creaking floorboards at night, when you're certain that you are at home all alone and there shouldn't be anyone with you; the chilling sound keeps you transfixed, waiting to hear more and yet dreading the noise. "As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don't expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind ensnaring the senses…" Here he trailed off, casting his gaze around the class. Draco stared at him intensely, determined to catch the professor's eyes, but Snape glazed right over him. Next to the blonde, Granger sat stiffly in her seat, gazing at the professor as though accepting a challenge.

Now the teacher continued. "I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death – if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach."

His speech was met with silence. Even the Slytherins were quiet in their seats. Heart in his throat, Draco waited for some noise to break across the moment and get time moving into motion once more. If he recalled correctly, Snape would call on Potter to embarrass him in front of the class…

"Potter!" Snape barked suddenly, scaring a majority of the class at his voice. "What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

The bespectacled boy nearly fell out of his seat, surprised to be called on. Normally Draco would've laughed, but he felt too put out by his godfather's ignorance to properly appreciate the moment.

"How silly of me," he said, "expecting someone of your upbringing to bother knowing something as _basic_ as the answer to that question. Mr. Malfoy." He was now talking to Draco, but not looking at the student. Draco swallowed nervously.

"Yes?"

"Answer my question, unless you too are just as disappointingly incompetent as Potter here."

Perhaps it was the unusualness of being on the receiving end of Snape's disdain (he was wondering whether ignorance might actually be better than rude acknowledgment), or a multitude of other reasons, but the answer to his godfather's question – an answer Draco _surely_ should've know – evaded his mind. He knew it was on the edge of his tongue, ready to leap out, but much too timid and unsure to actually announce its presence.

Professor Snape's lips curled into a familiar sneer that had never before been directed at Draco. "Tut, tut - I was expecting a better answer from you. Let's try this again. Mr. Malfoy, where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?"

"I don't know." _Why is this happening? Surely just my house placement isn't enough to make my_ godfather _hate me? And why can't I remember any of this stuff?_

" _Sir,_ " Snape stressed. "'I don't know, _sir._ Hasn't your father taught you _any_ manners, Mr. Malfoy?"

Draco felt his normally pale cheeks coloring. This was not good. If there was one color Malfoy's never looked good in, it was scarlet, which was another reason, up to now, there'd never been one in Gryffindor.

"Let's try once more," Snape suggested cruelly. "What is the difference, Mr. Malfoy, between monkshood and wolfsbane?"

 _"It's a trick question, they're the same thing,"_ came Granger's whisper from his side, but he'd known that even without her help. He shot her a glare, accompanied by Pansy's whispered, "He knows, stupid."

"They're the same plant. They also go by the name of aconite," Draco finally managed an answer.

Now Snape's lips curled disdainfully. "That is correct," he snapped. "It's a pity that you needed help from a Muggleborn to get that right."

Indignant, both Draco and Hermione opened their mouths to protest (Draco's anger was far more warranted than Granger's, mind you), but Snape had already turned his back to the class and was working at the blackboard, leaving the blonde to splutter furiously before setting to work to show his godfather that he _was_ good at potions and that he wasn't any different just because he was a Gryffindor.

"Don't worry, Draco," purred Pansy later as the class dispersed, collecting ingredients for their first-ever potion. She patted him on the shoulder, and carefully began to measure out her powdered horn. "He's just like that because you're not a Slytherin yet."

"Thanks," the boy replied, feeling gratified at her assurance and the looks of understanding that the others were displaying on their faces as they too went about making potions. "Wait, what do you mean yet?" he asked belatedly.

His friends looked at him as though he were foolish.

Then Blaise laughed. "That's funny, Draco," he said. "As if you didn't know!"

"Know what?"

"Stop messing around," Daphne said with a smile on her face. When he maintained a confused expression, she went on, "Surely you can't believe they'd let a _Malfoy_ stay in _Gryffindor?_ "

"But the Sorting Hat – "

" _But the Sorting Hat,"_ Blaise mimicked, sounding suddenly harsh. "The Sorting Hat's just a mad old piece of clothing that can talk and thinks it can say whatever it wants about us because it can 'read our minds' – that's what my dad's been saying for years now. I don't care how great it's supposed to be – it's bound to make mistakes all the time."

A dark and horrible feeling was clawing its way into Draco's stomach. He knew where this was going. He'd been wrong – something a Malfoy was rarely – if ever. He didn't want to hear more. Didn't want to know the reason they'd befriended him. No. He'd rather continue this second chance in complete obliviousness. He thought they were his friends because House didn't matter to them. He didn't want to know…

But Blaise was continuing.

"And when you're resorted into your _proper_ house," the boy was saying, "everything will be back to the way it's supposed to be. We're so sorry, Draco, that you had to _mingle_ and even share a dorm with blood traitors and Mudbloods and that sort."

And Pansy added, "Yes, you ought to take a few good baths, Draco, after being around filth like that." Then they all laughed, and Draco felt horrified.

So it did matter to them, his house. But he shouldn't be surprised. House, family, associations, wealth – that was all important. Nothing else mattered. And even if his friends were only spewing out the things their parents told them (Draco had done that, and still did that, all the time, because children listened to what they were told), the words they said still hurt.

 _Resorted,_ he thought drily. _So Father's really going through with that. Then what happens? All this progress – well, gaining Potter and Weasley's trust, becoming a Gryffindor – what happens to that?_

Maybe he wasn't supposed to change the future after all. Maybe his second chance wasn't actually a second chance. Maybe it was just a taunting glimmer of hope, teasing him about his choices, promising that he could make the future better, but really just tormenting him as he was forced to relive his childhood and the horrors he'd faced. Maybe he was just along for the ride.

The stars had never seemed farther away.

* * *

A/N: As always thank you for all the kind reviews, follows, and favorites. They all mean a lot.

Also, like I said before I hope that Hermione (and Draco and really everyone)'s characters are written realistically. And I apologize if this was a boring chapter, hopefully the next few will be not only more enlightening but more exciting.

Thanks for sticking with me thus far and I hope that I haven't lost you with this chapter. Also again I probably won't be able to update for a little while. I don't know when, don't have a schedule either and I'm sorry.

Sorry can't respond to all reviews like last time - thank you for all the support it really makes my day. **Thank you to cpetrienm, Guest, ragsweas, GeekMom13, Suzululu4moe, Guest, Please-Forget-Me-Not, Acute-angle-101, MagicornIs1, FateMorgan, Guest, ImpossibleNightmare, Mouse the Annon, and RafeFallstar for reviewing (and to all of you who faved/followed, it really means a lot too).**

 **GeekMom13: I'm thinking that right now, Draco will assume some of Hermione's roles, but won't entirely replace her, but we'll see! Good to know you're along for the ride.**

 **Please-Forget-Me-Not: So, I incorporated a first interaction between Draco and his old friends. It took a bit (lots) of drafts to get it to a point where I actually like their interaction, so I'm hoping that it was realistic tell me what you think. I'm still a bit concerned that I rushed it, or made them seem too shallow. I like the points you made, and tried to address some of them in this chapter.  
**

 **Acute-angle-101: Really glad that you like this story and so sorry for the long update! :'(  
**

 **Guest: Yes, very good point on the different points of bravery, and in that way I think it would be very difficult to be a Sorting Hat because there's different types of everything - knowledge, loyalty, bravery, cunning.**

 **Guest:** **I'm really sorry, I did not mean to offend. If you'd like I can definitely go back and edit the first chapter and get rid of the Southern accent spoken by Wendy. But I'm glad that you like the writing otherwise, and I will definitely not do that again, sorry. I was not intending to degrade anyone. Hopefully that did not deter you, I would feel horrible if that stopped you from reading. Again I did not mean to offend and if you'd like I can rewrite the chapter**

 **RafeFallstar: I see what you mean with the trope, we'll see if Wendy comes back or no! I'm also hoping that I'm still doing a decent job at characterizing Draco, this chapter I rewrote multiple times because I wanted to get a part with his friends involved, and by doing so characterize them but also explain Draco's opinion on his bullying in his earlier days and also show that while he's mostly moved on from that for the most part, he's not exactly opposed to demeaning terms if that makes sense. He does still see hiimself as superior and I agree with what you say - he's less sorry for his actions than he is for consequences that affect him. You make great points, I'm still working things out but hopefully it'll go where you like it. Here's to hoping that it will be pulled of. Cheers! Thanks for reviewing.**


	6. What His Words Would Cost Him

hello agin. this chapter was long overdue and I'm very sorry that it's been so many months.

a heads up this is more of a hermione/Draco chapter and has less to do with Harry and Ron. I was looking over my writing and worried that I would'nt develop the relationship between the two properly. I'm not sure what I will do with Halloween and the troll. I want the four to be friends but worried that will be too generic.

I don't own Harry Potter as much as I would love to, if I owned it this would probably be a book

* * *

 **Chapter Six: "What His Words Would Cost Him."**

"Can I sit here?"

It was after dinner of Draco's first miserable day at Hogwarts. The sneers of his friends filled his sight whenever he closed his eyes, and his ears rang with "Mudbloods" and "blood traitors" and the words of his friends. His mouth tasted bitter and he was regretting not going down to the Great Hall for a bite. Instead, he'd chosen to huddle away in the library, even when Potter and Weasley protested and practically begged him to come to dinner with them. It might've been a chance to further change the future, improve their relationship, and et cetera, but Draco was feeling to confused and upset about all that. He'd decided that he _wasn't_ supposed to change the future, so he shouldn't bother trying.

What he needed was some quiet time to himself, to research and think and brainstorm. He needed to think about the past and recall what had happened, separate the important from the insignificant, and figure out his goal, and how to get there. He planned on figuring all of this out in the library, which was a cemetery because it was dinner time.

But then Granger had to come along and botch everything up.

Upon hearing her question, Draco looked up from the book he was reading. He raised a blonde eyebrow in suspicion, feeling triumphant when a look of embarrassment flitted across the girl's face. Perhaps if he stared at her intimidatingly for long enough, she'd take the hint and leave. That way, he wouldn't have to waste his breath speaking to her, and he'd be alone again.

But despite her evident discomfort, Grander did not waver. In fact, she didn't bother waiting any longer for an answer. She practically dropped her bag on the library table, causing Draco to jump (not from fright - Malfoy's _never_ got scared because they were prepared for everything) and then sat down across from him, busying herself by removing stacks of books, sheafs of parchment, bottles of ink, and a handful of quills.

"Are you going to say something, or just keep staring at me like that?" she asked after a few moments of silence. She pulled one of her many textbooks towards her and unrolled some parchment.

Draco huffed, affronted. "I'm not _staring._ "

"Sure," came Granger's reply.

She said nothing more, opting instead for opening her textbook and beginning to write an essay that was surely long, boring, and a waste of time to read. Draco set down the book he'd been reading and racked his brain. He hadn't known Granger all that well in his first year. She'd been the annoying Mudblood - er, Muggleborn - who'd beaten him in all his classes and earned him punishment from his furious father, but until the incident with slugs in second year on the Quidditch, he'd never really paid that much attention to her. Sure, he'd landed her detention in first year (he'd also gotten detention, but that had been intentional, not at all on accident), but she'd merely been a casualty - his main goal had been getting Potter in trouble.

So perhaps it was fair to say that he hadn't known eleven-year-old Hermione Granger all that well. But still, it was strange to know her this way - not as a friend, but not as an enemy either. The first time through Draco's life, she'd never struck him as someone particularly sarcastic or sharp (save for her good grades), so her behavior around Draco surprised him a bit.

"Aren't you doing your homework?" Granger broke the silence. Though she'd spoken, she hadn't looked up from her work. Her face looked a bit flushed, and Draco blinked rapidly and realized he'd been staring at her this entire time. Well, of course he had. His subconscious had obviously been trying to intimidate her further into realizing that didn't actually want to share a table with him. It hadn't worked.

"It's the first day of school," Draco replied.

"There will only be more homework tomorrow," came the response. "You might as well get it done now, when you have time."

"I'm busy," he snapped. Time was the one thing he certainly did seem to have, but he needed to figure out how and why. He picked up again the book he'd been reading earlier. This movement seemed to gain her attention.

"What are you reading?" she asked, and when he didn't bother responding, she read the spine. " _A Complete Guide To Wizarding Time Travel._ Oh, that's very fascinating. I know it's far too advanced for first years, but I couldn't help but take a peak at that book at Flourish and Blotts when I was there. I still don't fully understand the whole concept of Time Turners, but I didn't get much of a chance to further read into it. Could I borrow that when you're done with it?"

Draco, once again, did not dignify her with a response. He continued reading. This book was possibly the only thing that might help him figure out what exactly had happened to him, how to reverse the effects, and, if all else failed, what he should actually do if he really was stuck as a twenty-one-year-old in the past.

"That's very rude of you," Granger sighed when he didn't say anything, but hardly looked put off. She was back to her essay in a heartbeat, leaving Draco to peruse his _A Complete Guide to Wizarding Time Travel_ in desperate hope that it would provide him with some useful information. Half of the contents of the guide were descriptions of people who'd attempted to invent the first time traveling spell or device and failing, resulting most often in gruesome deaths or disfigurations. The other half was pages of boring laws regarding time travel. At last, though, after wading through bothersome pages that had taken the lives of trees for no reason, Draco found a passage that interested him.

 _The Time Turner is the most common form of wizarding time travel. Issued only to those who have successfully completed numerous and thorough background checks and searches, the Time Turner allows the user to travel back several hours into their past. However, time-related magic is unstable. The Hour-Reversal Charm, widely believed to be the incantation placed upon Time Turners, though never confirmed, is a very dangerous and unstable spell. Use of either the Hour-Reversal Charm or the Time Turner is very limiting, and the Ministry of Magic, along with other wizarding governments, has placed hundreds of laws regarding use of time-related magic, along with high penalties for abusers (for more information on time travel laws, see pages 1-348)._

 _Even with time-related magic, a person can only go back so far into their past. Professor Croaker's law states that the longest period that can be travelled back without serious chance of harm to the traveller, or time itself, is around five hours. Time-related magic can result in serious, catastrophic events, in which a wizard or witch might kill their past selves by mistake, alter life so drastically that time itself unravels, create an alternate dimension, or cause an unbirth (for more on unbirths, see page 234)._

 _Going beyond the five-hour recommended limit can potentially result in harm. In one of the most well-known cases of time-travel gone wrong, a witch by the name of Eloise Mintumble time travelled back to the year 1402, journeying over four hundred centuries to make the leap. As a result, there was a major breach in the laws of time. Madam Mintumble remained stuck in the 15th century for five days until she was finally rescued, dying in St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries after her body aged five centuries upon her return to 1899. A minimum of twenty-five people were unborn as a result of Madam Mintumble's interaction with their ancestors in the past, and the Tuesday after the incident lasted for two and a half days, while the following Thursday lasted only four hours (for more stories of time traveling catastrophes, see pages 543-1206)._

 _Users of time-related magic would still have a memory of the events in the original timeline from which they came, but would be fully aware of every change and alteration made (for more information on original timelines, see page 1560)._

Merlin's underpants. Draco had to sit back after reading such a long portion of the book. If Malfoy's could be surprised, he would've been. Prior to this whole stuck-in-the-body-of-my-eleven-year-old-self thing, he'd had no experience with time travel, and before picking up _A Complete Guide To Wizarding Time Travel,_ Draco hadn't know much - actually, well, anything (though he hated to admit it) - about time travel. It was never a subject that interested him. There were always more fascinating things to become engrossed with, better things with which to be spending his precious time.

After a few heartbeats of silence in which Draco's brain digested the new information, he pulled out a sheaf of parchment and a quill, noting the approving look he got from Granger at this action.

Dipping his quill into ink, he began to make a list of the few things that he was certain of, regarding his situation.

 _1\. I did not travel via Time Turner. This is most likely impossible because among other things, Time Turners can only travel back a maximum of 'five hours' into the past safely, and though Eloise Mintumble did travel back farther than I did, she aged forward, not backwards._

 _2\. Unless deaging is another one of the side effects, and it just hasn't been specified yet._

 _3\. But that can't be, because if I really_ was _deaged by going past the five-hour limit, then what happened to the original me in my past? This disproves that idea, meaning that_ I _must be the original Draco, the only Draco that ever existed in this timeline._

 _4\. There are no wizards or witches that I know in New York. And even if there were, why would one come into my apartment and cast the Hour-Reversal Charm? Unless they did so while I was outside of my apartment, in which case, I would've noticed immediately. Besides, the idea that the Hour-Reversal Charm being used is just as impossible as a Time Turner._

 _5\. Also, how did I get from New York to Britain in the course of one evening (if it was only one evening since I went to sleep in New York and woke up at Malfoy Manor)?_

 _6\. The only thing out of the ordinary that I did in the future/present was go to that bar, where I met Wendy._

 _7\. But Wendy was a Muggle._

 _8\. Or was she?_

 _9\. Wendy poisoned my drink._

 _10\. But why, and with what?_ A Complete Guide to Wizarding Time Travel _doesn't mention anything about time travel potions._

Looking back at his numbered list, Draco sighed in frustration. He didn't like how uncertain he was, and he didn't like the fact that there wasn't someone who could answer the questions for him, because there was no one he could turn to, other than the Sorting Hat, for any help.

"What's the matter?" asked Granger at the sound of his annoyance. "Is it Professor Snape's assignment? I'll admit, it's trickier than I expected to be, what with all - "

"No, it's not that," Draco cut across, waving his hand dismissively in her direction. He didn't have to see her face to know that she was surprised at his tone of voice, and he felt annoyed at the sudden feeling of guilt welling up inside him. A Malfoy never felt guilt, because they never regretted their actions.

This Malfoy mantra rang hollow in Draco's mind now, though. After the war, the Malfoy's certainly _had_ regretted everything they'd done. That was evidenced in the listless way his mother lived her life, no longer interested anything, and the dull grey eyes of his father as Lucius stared at nothing. But Draco was certain that if his parents had the second chance (or whatever this was) that he had, they wouldn't take it. Though the lives they now led were miserable tortures, ghosts of the grandiose times they once had, Narcissa and Lucius Malfoy were far too proud to admit their wrongs.

"Granger," Draco said in an effort to separate himself from his train of thought, before his mind could plunge him back into the wizarding war, "I know this is probably silly to ask you, but do you know anything about time travel potions?"

The girl's eyebrows raised. She immediately set down the quill she was holding. "Hmm, that's interesting," she mused. "I don't really know a lot about time travel specifically, but if you need to know, I'm sure Professor Snape might be able to help you out."

That was the opposite of what Draco needed. Snape already seemed to hate him, or possibly suspect him of something, and he didn't want to further raise his godfather's suspicions by asking about time travel. Snape had some mysterious gift that allowed him to almost always figure things out, and Draco wasn't sure how he would feel if his godfather found out that his godson was in fact from the future. But then, perhaps telling an adult in a high position might lead Draco to the help he needed, or at least the answers he needed, and then he could figure out what had happened and go back to his miserable but normal life in New York, away from Hogwarts and Britain and Harry Potter and Hermione Granger.

* * *

The next morning, Draco faced a new problem. It was something that he'd completely forgotten about, in the events of his school year, but something that he now realized was momentous in both his and Potter's life.

Learning to ride a broomstick.

The Slytherin-now-Gryffindor vividly remembered this lesson. It was one of the clearest things he still held in his mind, because he'd hated himself so much for inadvertently landing Potter a spot on the Gryffindor Quidditch team. In Draco's attempt to get the bespectacled boy in trouble, he'd instead made Potter the youngest seeker in a century, something that, thinking on it now, ten years later, still brought an unpleasant taste to Draco's mouth.

But now, Draco was faced with a question. Should he repeat his actions as he had in the past, or not act at all, and see how this new fate played out? Was it crucial that Potter become the Gryffindor seeker?

With Draco's knowledge of all of Potter's feats (not because he was obsessed with Potter or anything, but because everything the Chosen One did was always in the Daily Prophet), he tried to rule out the right course of action while Madame Hooch gave instructions to the first years' in her loud voice.

"Stick out your right hand over your broom," instructed Madam Hooch at the front, "and say 'Up!"'

"UP!" everyone shouted.

"Up," Draco echoed, a half a beat behind. Nobody noticed his delay, as they were busy with their own brooms. Just as Draco remembered it, most of the first years' were disappointed when their brooms stayed firmly on the ground. Potter's, of course, jumped immediately into the boy's hand, as though it were an overly eager dog, waiting for its master to summon it.

But, unlike in the past, Draco's broom also leaped into his hand, much to his surprise. It definitely hadn't done that the first time, because for all his confidence and bravado, Draco had been nervous - no, wisely wary - of mounting a broom. Of course, it wasn't because he was frightened or anything. No, he simply didn't trust the used, unsafe school-issued broomsticks that they had to use. Surely they were a safety hazard? As Madame Hooch and the other kids would soon see, it was one of these hazardous brooms that injured Longbottom.

Once everyone held their broomsticks in their hand, Madame Hooch went about instructing them on the posture and the correct hand positions.

"Very good, Draco," she said, examining him. She seemed surprised at his perfect grip as she moved on to Potter, who was next to him, and gave the Boy Who Lived a cluck of approval.

 _Maybe Longbottom didn't bring his Remembrall this time, so there won't be anything for me to do,_ Draco thought, hoping that this would be true so he wouldn't have to decide on the correct course of action. _Or maybe one of the Slytherins will end up doing it instead, because there's no me to do it._

He hoped for the latter object. That way, history that hadn't already been messed up would stay on course, and he wouldn't have to be responsible for it. _Of course,_ Draco added hastily to himself, more out of habit than anything else, _whatever I do_ will _be correct, because Malfoy's are never wrong._

"Now, when I blow my whistle, you kick off from the ground, hard," Madame Hooch said. She was now back at the end of the row of first years, standing with her hands on her hips, the whistle in question dangling from her neck. "Keep your brooms steady, rise a few feet, and then come straight back down by leaning forward slightly." She brought the whistle to her lips, and held up her hand, counting off. "On my whistle - three - two - "

But before she could get to one, Longbottom, as nervous as Draco remembered him, was rising off the ground.

"Come back, boy!" Madame Hooch shouted, but her demands meant nothing as panic seized Longbottom and he rose higher.

In that moment, Draco saw Neville falling before it actually happened. _If Longbottom doesn't ever get hurt, than Madame Hooch won't leave, which means everything with the Remembrall won't happen, which means I won't have to choose whether or not to taunt Potter._

This option, stopping Neville's injury from happening, seemed like the best option. Malfoy's wand was in his hand and the spell was out of his mouth before he could think his choice through. With the words of _"Arresto Momentum!"_ he didn't think about how much he might've just changed the future, or the questions he would raise because a first year should not know the spell he'd just used.

Longbottom seemed to fall in slow motion. When he finally landed, Madame Hooch was all over him, asking him repeatedly if he was okay, if anything hurt, what he was thinking, et cetera. Once she'd ensured that he would live, she pushed through the chaotic children to find Draco.

"You're coming with me, young man," Madame Hooch said, her voice low and serious.

Draco gulped. He was as petrified as a Malfoy could be (so, of course, totally _not_ scared at all, because Malfoy's never were), but despite this, he obediently began to follow Madame Hooch back to the castle, while the other kids looked on, wordless. Not even the Slytherins said anything, although Draco wasn't sure if it was because they were shocked or because it was a Malfoy who was in trouble.

"Madame Hooch!" a voice called from the knot of students. The sea of shocked expressions parted to reveal Granger. Of course. Who else had Draco been expecting? "Is Draco in trouble?"

The teacher didn't break stride. She continued sweeping into the castle, her robes billowing around her, remind Draco of a slightly less impressive Snape. "We'll see about that," she said over her shoulder, and then seeing that Draco had stopped following her, she beckoned impatiently.

Behind him, Draco heard Blaise say something about Mudbloods and pathetic Squibs. The cruel remark was met with the echoing chorus of Slytherins laughing. Though Malfoy's didn't regret their actions and all that, he couldn't help but wonder what his words would cost him.

* * *

 **A/N:** So yeah bit of an anticlimactic chapter but I hope it was interesting and I hope you remember what was actually going on in the story. I hope this chapter made sense, and that you got a better sense of time travel. originally I was going to cut it at the end of the library scene but I decided that it might be boring, and the broomstick scene I thot was to short to be its own chapter so I added it so I hope that as okay. I've got an idea of what happened to Draco but I'm torn between two possible things that could happen next. I guess I'll have to right to see which I like better. No promises on another update any time soon but I recently started a second chapter to the doe and the stag my other fan fiction so I hope to get that out soon. thank you of reading I really appreciate.

Also, the part with time travel and all that I did not make up. that was from Harry Potter wiki, so in addition to not owning Harry Potter, I don't own wiki and any parts you might recognize being from the book, is not mine, so don't give me credit. I don't own anything and maybe this is excessive disclaimer but I'm paranoid so to reiterate no I don't own anything.

Thank you to al those who reviewed!

 **GeekMom13: thank you, hope** **you're still enjoying and sorry for long wait.**

 **gginsc: yes I can see why that might be confusing and I'm sorry. my thoughts were that yes, Draco understand that his friends will think as he did when he was eleven that is to say, they are cruel and think as they've been taught to think, but despite this knowledge, he still wants their friendship. He was surprised when Blaise even acknowledged him in potions, because he thought that, now that he was a Gryffindor, they wouldn't want to associate with him. But when they did, even accepting them as part of their group, he thought that maybe they would be his friend, regardless of house. Basically Draco is seeing his friends through the eyes that have been through the wizarding war and with a mind that knows house and blood status really shouldn't matter, and he forgets that his friends are still the same as they were eleven years ago, unlike he was. He also thinks that him being a Malfoy overrides his house, so he's surprised when he discovers that it doesn't. I hope this makes sense and I'm sorry.**

 **MagicornIs1: not sure but maybe :)**

 **rhythmbluesgirl: yay and sorry for long wait.**

 **Guest: I know! I guess it's just their way of coping. I might elaborate a bit more on the relationships Draco had with his friends. in regards to their harshness towards him, I think it was more of a 'let's blame somebody else so that we can feel better about ourselves' and Draco being the leader of the Slytherins ended up being that somebody else. but yes, I do think this will play into Draco's characters and the friends he will ultimately make in this second chance. as for the dream...maaaaybe :)**

 **Guest: Thanks! Sry for the long wait and hope you enjoyd the chapter!**


	7. Seeker of the Quidditch Team?

Again I do not own Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy, or any of the other characters in this fanfic, and any scenes/dialogue you might recognize is not my own.

Just a warning, the beginning of this chapter is slightly graphic with imagery and depression, just be warned.

* * *

 **Chapter Seven: "Seeker Of The Quidditch Team?"**

 _He was standing in the bathroom, cold and shaking, staring down into the empty basin of a porcelain sink as though looking for answers he knew he would not find. His hair should've been falling in his face, but his skin was hot and sweaty, so instead it clung to his flesh like a dying man clinging to life. His breath was shallow. He tried to focus on keeping a steady stream of air flowing into and out of his lungs. His vision was a light show of colors, flickering from black to red, to green and then yellow, and then back to black again. His knees were trembling from the effort of keeping him standing, and he wanted nothing more than to sink to the ground and never get up again. He wanted to find a place where he could curl up in peace and never be found, just another person, missing in the chaos of war._

 _But no. he would never be "just another person." His last name proved that he was anything but. And though he'd normally taken pride in his family and what they stood for, today, he wished that he had been born as anything else - even a house elf would've been better off than him, now, after everything. He couldn't bare to look in the mirror, afraid of the monster he would see, and yet he raised his eyes to gaze at the wretched being that stared back at him, reflected in horrible detail. Dark circles on pale skin, dead gray eyes staring from beneath drooping lids. If only Mother could see him now, he thought. How horrified she'd be, that her son could look so ugly. But, he supposed, he'd always been a disappointment._

 _His eyes wandered over the shoulder of the reflection, half expecting to see a certain bespectacled boy staring back at him in surprise, wand at the ready, a curse on his lips. But Harry Potter, of course, was not there. Harry Potter was probably off somewhere, throwing a huge party or giving an interview to the Daily Prophet, as the wizarding world, who couldn't get enough of their savior, gobbled up his every word and practically groveled at the boy's feet. His friends, the Weasel and the Mudblood, would be with him too, pretending to be all modest and shy but surely reveling in the praise being hung around their necks like shiny golden medals._

 _And where was he?_

 _In a bathroom that strongly resembled Moaning Myrtle's. But not at Hogwarts. Oh no, Hogwarts was too good for him now. Nobody would want to see his face ever again. He could hear nasty words ringing in his ears and it felt like the Sectumsempra curse had hit him again, and he was bleeding out on the bathroom floor, watching the water stain red around him as he waited for someone, somehow, to swoop in and save him from the darkness and the pain. But Snape was dead. So this time, he would really die, alone and cold on a bathroom floor, wondering if he would ever be able to be happy again. He forced himself to concentrate again on the situation at hand. Right. The cracked mirror. A filthy, Muggle gas station bathroom. That's where he was._

Look at you, _a voice whispered in his ears, nasty and scornful. It sounded much like a voice Draco would've used back in school, as he made fun of Potter and his friends, sneered down his nose at those who he deemed lesser than he._ Look at how far you've fallen.

 _He was Draco Lucius Malfoy. He was nineteen years old. He was standing in the bathroom of a run-down 24/7 convenience store, somewhere in a remote American town. He had been abandoned by those who he'd once called friends. His father was locked away in prison. His mother was locked away at home. And he...he might look free, but he was and would forever be locked away in the past._

* * *

Apprehension filled Draco as he followed the fuming form of Madame Hooch away from the other first-years. How he hated being in trouble. In the times when it had happened before, he had merely been filled with a sense of indignation. _How dare these insignificant pests waste my time with this pathetic nonsense,_ he'd think. They were the ones in the wrong, not him. A Malfoy never got into trouble, and they most _certainly_ were never wrong.

Until they were.

He shook that thought off. Everybody made mistakes. The Malfoy's, despite their utter and obvious perfection, had just made a big one.

"Hurry up, boy," Madame Hooch barked from the top of a staircase. Draco huffed. It wasn't his fault he was so short. It made keeping up with Hooch's lengthy strides all the more difficult. Besides, Malfoy's never rushed about or obeyed other's orders (unless it was You-Know-Who's, but that was beside the point) and it was always other people who had to hurry to keep up. Nevertheless, Draco picked up his pace and joined Madame Hooch at the top of the steps.

They were in a wing of the school that Draco had rarely, if at all, visited. It was the office spaces of most of the teachers, but because Draco had only ever visited Snape's office, in the dungeon, this quarter of the school was unfamiliar to him. He wondered again where he was being taken, what would happen to him, if he was in trouble, if he'd just messed up the future. Certainly, his actions must've caused something to be screwed up. He prayed to Merlin that Potter being on the Quidditch team wasn't vitally important to the future, but it probably was. He would worry about that later.

"Right this way, Mr. Malfoy," Madame Hooch beckoned, her voice only a degree warmer than it had been before. She was standing at the end of the row of office doors, impatiently waiting for the first year to catch up before turning down another corridor.

There was more silence as the pair now walked the length of this new corridor. Draco tried to think of something that wasn't _What do I do, do I do anything, have I screwed everything over_ (Malfoy's don't screw everything over. They should also know exactly what to do in every situation). He listened to the sound of his footsteps echoing off the cold stone walls. There were no windows in the corridor, the darkness lit only by the flickering lights of floating candles.

At last, Madame Hooch halted in front of one of the doors. She motioned for Draco to stop, and then raised her fist to knock on the door. From inside, a voice invited them to enter with a single word. The flying instructor pushed open the door and held it open for Draco to go in first. If Draco had contemplated escape before, he knew there was no way of fleeing now.

He found himself in McGonagall's office, which surprised him. He did not know the Gryffindor had one, or never really bothered to think about it.

The professor's lips thinned as she gave Draco a severe look, which he found completely unfair, and then focused on Hooch, who closed the door as she entered the office.

"Take a seat," she bid them, gesturing to the two chairs in front of her desk. "Rolanda, what is this all about?"

Madame Hooch let herself be seated, and then gave Draco a pointed look. He also sat down, keeping to the edge of the chair. He didn't want to be here. He didn't want to be in this office, or at Hogwarts again. Maybe this was his second chance, an opportunity for redemption and all that, but it was too much. He didn't want to decide the future, didn't want to figure out the consequences of all this choices. At that moment, he would do anything just to be back in his apartment again, back in New York, back to his miserable post-Wizarding-War life. Everything made sense there, at least, even if all the people he'd known in his childhood either hated him or were dead.

" - casting a spell way beyond his first year level of knowledge," Madame Hooch was saying. Draco jolted, realizing he'd tuned the two teachers out. He shook his head, trying to stay in the moment, even as his mind dragged him back into the turmoil and self-pity washing over him.

 _I shouldn't have cast that spell,_ he thought. Forget Malfoy's not feeling regret, because right now, Draco was feeling a lot of that. It was stupid. It didn't make sense. Casting a spell shouldn't feel that groundbreaking, like everything was wrong, like the future had been damaged. So what if Potter wouldn't be on the Quidditch team? That one fact couldn't be _that_ important? Besides, the future had _already_ changed. Draco was a bloody Gryffindor, for Merlin's sake. If that didn't screw everything up, then nothing could.

"Mr. Malfoy," a voice was saying, and Draco refocused to see both Madame Hooch and McGonagall casting disappointed expressions in his direction.

"Huh? Yes?" he managed.

"If you could be bothered to pay attention," McGonagall said drily, "then I think you would realize that we have asked you a question."

Feeling sheepish, Draco apologized. Then he looked down at his feet, feeling sudden shame. A Malfoy, apologizing? It was almost as if Voldemort had won the war and Draco was now living in a post-war apocalyptic setting, where You-Know-Who was the ruler of the wizarding world.

"What was the question, Professor?"

"We've been keeping track of your progress here at Hogwarts, Mr. Malfoy," McGonagall said slowly, watching him with keen eyes as if assessing him to make sure that this time, he was paying attention to her words. He swallowed hard, feeling oddly nervous, which was silly, because, of course, Malfoy's don't do nervous. "And I am not your only teacher to make the observation. It seems, Mr. Malfoy, that the first year curriculum is too easy for you."

It was strange, to hear something akin to praise be directed at him from McGonagall, the head of Gryffindor house. It was a bizarre feeling, not unpleasant, but all-together unnerving. He did not feel capable of properly reacting (smiling, feeling a sense of accomplishment because finally it was him, not Granger, getting a compliment for his knowledge) because of _course_ the first year curriculum was too easy. Merlin, everything was too easy. He could probably take the O.W.L.S. right now and expect at least six O's. But nobody could know that, because that would lead to questions. And as confused as Draco was at the whole stuck-in-my-eleven-year-old-body-in-the-past thing, at least he was getting used to it, and he didn't want anyone else to interfere.

"At Hogwarts, we don't exactly skip years, like they do sometimes in Muggle schools," McGonagall said. "However, we do offer the option of testing into the next level early. That would mean you would take second year classes this year, and then third year classes next year, and so on. You would not graduate early - your seventh year, you would be offered extended classes to further advance your knowledge. It's a rare opportunity that we offer to very few, so please consider your choice carefully, Mr. Malfoy. We're very pleased with all of your hard work."

Finally managing a shaky, tight smile, Draco said, "Thank you, and I will think about it."

"Very good," said McGonagall. She seemed to hesitate, before she spoke once more. "One last thing, Mr. Malfoy. It has come to our attention that your parents are somewhat...unsatisfied with the way your Sorting went. We don't normally allow students the choice - the Sorting Hat does know what it is doing - but if you feel that you'd like to be resorted, the option is open for you."

At these unexpected words, Draco almost reeled back in his chair. Was McGonagall serious? Well, she must've been, because in all seven years of Draco's Hogwarts' career, he'd never heard the Gryffindor Head of House joke around. But then, he'd never heard of a student being offered a second chance at being Sorted. As shocked as he was, and as appealing as the chance of being a Slytherin (as he rightfully was, because he was a Malfoy) was, he already knew that he couldn't accept the offer. He was sure the Sorting Hat would resort him into Gryffindor anyway, because the Sorting Hat already knew that Draco was from the future. And if Draco wanted to better the (his) future, then he would have to stay, unfortunately, in Gryffindor house with Potter, Weasel, and Granger.

"Thank you, Professor," he spoke after a measured amount of time. "But I'll have to decline. I'm happy where I am."

McGonagall hardly reacted to these words, but he could tell she was surprised by the slight raise of her eyebrows at his words. Nevertheless, she gave him a tight-lipped smile. "Very well, Mr. Malfoy. That will be all." She rose, as did Madame Hooch. Taking his cue, Draco followed suit. He felt surprisingly calm, for the first time since waking up in the past. He was sure he'd done what was right. Except for the possibility of jumping ahead and taking second year courses (he was probably going to refuse that as well, because didn't he have to stick with Potter?), everything seemed in place. The one thing that kept bother him was, though, that Potter wouldn't be Seeker this time around. Unless...

"And Mr. Malfoy?" McGonagall's voice pulled him out of his musings, and he turned around, afraid that all of this talk had been a ruse, and he actually in trouble for what he'd done to save Longbottom. But McGonagall was actually smiling, not a tight-lipped, disappointed smile that he was used to. If he wasn't wrong, he could almost detect pride in her expression. "Twenty points to Gryffindor, for quick thinking and saving a fellow classmate from harm," McGonagall said in a form of farewell.

Madame Hooch was already in the hallway, holding the door open for him as she impatiently waited for him to exit the office. And he was almost out of the room when suddenly he froze, realizing that perhaps he could do something to get Potter on the Quidditch team. He turned around.

"Professor," he began, "I realize that this will be a strange request, but it's extremely important. Would it be possible to allow Potter to be Seeker of the Quidditch team?"

* * *

A/N: Hey guys sorry for the long wait and for the short chapter. I tried going on but it seemed like it was better to save it for the next chapter or this would've been too long. One question I have is, do you think it would be better if Draco went back to the future again after the end of the first year, or should I continue to at lest the end of the second year? The latter option would mean longer story but I don't know if I have the ability to keep the story up that long. please let me know your opinions, appreciated. Anyway Ive been on vacation for a while but I also lost some inspiration/ideas for the story and didn't know how to continue, but I thought about what to write and hopefully ill have another chapter out soon. thank you for sticking with this story despite the sporadic updates, I really appreciate the support and I hope that I'll be able to finish this story, I really enjoy writing it!

Thank you to all the reviewers, there are so many!

TinySlippers: Pretty loud

Lily: Thank you, and I hope it remains realistic!

MagicornIs1: :)

Acute-angle-101: Haha sorry, hope it was still okay the second time around and sorry for the long wait.

Rain-XIX: Agreed, wish there were more! And thanks, that means a lot to me and hope you continue to enjoy the story

Anne: Thank you so much! Me too.

nkh1: Yeah, sorry about the wait. I hope so too

Guest (May 11): Thank you, that means a lot, I'm glad you enjoyed my writing and hope you like the chapter! Sorry for long wait.

A: Haha yes, totally.

To all the Guests, Lil, and Hanna: Thank you for all your kind words and encouragement to keep writing, I really appreciate all your motivation, it kept me going!


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